Memoirs of a Geisha (2005) on Netflix
Sold by her impoverished father, Chiyo Sakamoto is brought to a geisha house in Gion, while her sister Satsu goes to a brothel. The resident geisha Hatsumomo torments her.
- Netflix3.7/5
- IMDb7.3/10174,185 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes36%
Trailer
Plot summary
Chiyo Sakamoto is nine years old and lives with her sister Satsu in Yoroido, a fishing village on the Japanese coast. Their father sells both girls, and they are separated in Gion, Kyoto: Chiyo enters the Nitta okiya, a geisha house run by Mother, while Satsu is sent to a brothel. In the house Chiyo meets Pumpkin, a girl her own age, and Hatsumomo, the okiya's resident geisha, who is threatened by the newcomer and abuses her. Chiyo begins training in music, dance and tea ceremony. One day, crying on a bridge, she meets a kind man called the Chairman and decides she will become a geisha worthy of him. Mameha, a celebrated geisha in Gion, takes her as an apprentice and gives her the name Sayuri.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Memoirs of a Geisha (2005)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Steven Spielberg originally planned to direct Memoirs of a Geisha himself as his follow-up to Saving Private Ryan, and even cast dancer Rika Okamoto in the lead role of Sayuri, in what would have been her first film role.
- By 2002 Steven Spielberg had postponed Memoirs of a Geisha three separate times to make A.I. Artificial Intelligence, Minority Report and Catch Me If You Can, and finally stepped down as director while remaining on as a producer.
- The film was due to open in mainland China on February 9, 2006, but the Chinese State Administration of Radio, Film, and Television banned it on February 1, considering it "too sensitive" and overturning the approval for screening granted in November.
- The three leading non-Japanese actresses, Ziyi Zhang, Gong Li and Michelle Yeoh, were put through a "geisha boot camp" in Japanese music, dance and tea ceremony, yet advisor and anthropologist Liza Dalby later called the film a "wasted opportunity" to display geisha society accurately.
- Production designer John Myhre traveled to Japan for a month and took "about 200" photos a day as reference; the crew used them to build around 40 Japanese-style three-story structures, five cobblestone streets connected via alleyways, and a 250-foot-long river they dug and filled.
- Sound editors had to reconstruct English pronunciation for the cast by splicing together different dialogue clips to build missing syllables, since some actors spoke only partially phonetic English; the work earned the film an Academy Award nomination for sound editing.
- DreamWorks partner David Geffen tried to talk Spielberg out of directing the film for another studio, telling him plainly that he did not think it was good enough for him.
