Japanese cinema audiences tend not to whoop and holler to show their approval for films, which can make it hard to gauge their reactions. If that smile bore traces of relief, it was understandable. Marshall who directed the multi-Oscar-winner Chicago knew that the Japanese reception to the film represented a potential banana skin. It is, after all, a specifically Japanese story. So would the Japanese take to their hearts this subtitled, bizarrely multinational portrayal of their culture?
Memoirs of a very controversial geisha - Telegraph
How, many asked at the time, could this be? Breaking with long tradition, she agreed to be interviewed by Golden, who spent two weeks at her Kyoto home in Her only stipulation was that she and her family not be identified. She first raised objections to the mention of her name, and that of her husband, shortly after receiving galley proofs of the book in English, a language she does not read. But he said that he felt personally obliged to acknowledge me.
Production took place in southern and northern California and in several locations in Kyoto , including the Kiyomizu temple and the Fushimi Inari shrine. The film tells the story of a young Japanese girl, Chiyo Sakamoto, who is sold by her impoverished family to a geisha house called an okiya. Chiyo is eventually transformed into a geisha and renamed "Sayuri", and becomes one of the most celebrated geisha of her time. But with this success, Sayuri also learns the secrets and sacrifices of the geisha lifestyle.
The criticism in Japan centres on director Rob Marshall's casting of Chinese actors as geisha. Why on earth have they made a film making fun of the Japanese, when they cannot get by without us? Critics point to trailers that show the demure geisha of s Kyoto dancing on stage "as if they were in a Los Angeles strip show". The film, based on the book by Arthur Golden, tells the story of Sayuri Nitta, played by Zhang Ziyi, the daughter of a fisherman who is sold to a geisha teahouse and rises to the top of her profession.