www射-国产免费一级-欧美福利-亚洲成人福利-成人一区在线观看-亚州成人

  Home>News Center>Life
         
 

'Memoirs of a Geisha'
(Times)
Updated: 2005-12-09 10:54

The movie begins with a beautiful young girl named Chiyo being sold to an okiya, or geisha house, by her impoverished fisherman father. The house is run by the crusty, pipe-smoking Mother (Kaori Momoi) and the sweet, motherly Auntie (Tsai Chin), but it's ruled by Hatsumomo (Li), a geisha-diva as beautiful as she is despised. A teahouse legend, Hatsumomo does not appear to have let the years of geisha training get to her.

At home, she skulks around in various states of dishabille, bed-hair hanging fetchingly over a single eye, snarling at everybody who gets in her way. There's a reason for the attitude: "It is not for a geisha to love!" we soon learn, but unfortunately for Hatsumomo, she already does. So, naturally, does Chiyo, from the very moment she meets the handsome Chairman (Watanabe) on a bridge and he buys her a treat. But it's not for a geisha to 錕斤拷 well, you already know.

The beautiful Zhang 錕斤拷 who here possesses a pair of startling blue eyes that have the unfortunate effect of making her look glaucomatous 錕斤拷 may grow up to be a superstar entertainer, but she might as well be listed on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange for the ease with which she's bought and sold.

Thanks to Hatsumomo's scheming, she ends up indentured to Mother. She's then leased by the famous Mameha (Yeoh), another famous geisha with long, flowing hair, a sphinx-y smile and a cunning, sexual-political agenda.

Playing Glinda to Hatsumomo's Wicked Witch of the East, Mameha decides to help Sayuri take the place of Hatsumomo at Mother's okiya, so that peace may come to the geishas of Gion. So she gets to work transforming Chiyo into Sayuri, auctioning off her virginity and promoting her as a consort to the gruff and disfigured Nobu (K?ji Yakusho).

Rather than explore the tension between the geishas' public role as highly controlled, highly stylized "ideal women" and their personal desires, Marshall gives us three desperate teahouse "nocturnal wives," suffering one exquisite torment after another.

A scene in which Sayuri is prepped for her teahouse debut is accompanied by warpath music. Beauty, as we're continually reminded, is pain.

But then pain is beauty, and as "Geisha" swoons and flutters over every betrayal, near-miss and emotional torture that make up Sayuri's life, it's hard not to get swept up in the exquisite torment of it all. Besides, as my viewing companion remarked later, you put all those crazy women in one rice-paper house, emotions are bound to run high.

"Geisha" presents a particularly American view, pitting tradition against self-realization. And it fails to illuminate what the book (as I remember it) seemed to, that geishas enjoyed a freedom and education that other Japanese women did not. In the context of the teahouse, they were able to enjoy a parity with men that was unavailable to wives and daughters.

As central as they are to the geishas' lives, the men in the film are at best peripheral. "Memoirs" is a woman's picture in the most old-fashioned Hollywood sense. For all of Mameha's kindness to Sayuri, she remains an enigmatic figure with an agenda.

Even Sayuri's innocent friend Pumpkin (Zoe Weizenbaum, and later Youki Kudoh), whose time spent among American soldiers has an unfortunate "Full Metal Jacket" effect on her speech, turns out to have claws. And the set-pi錕斤拷ce de r錕斤拷sistance: a catfight in which Hatsumomo is given free reign to unleash her dormant Glenn Close.

Spanning two decades and a momentous war, "Memoirs of a Geisha" displays all the pomp and grandeur of an epic, but you wouldn't call it sweeping.

The story plays out in small rooms and smaller realms of possibility. It compensates for ratcheting up the emotion to operatic decibels and playing up the theatrics to the point of absurdity. (Sayuri's big moment comes when she performs a bizarre avant-garde dance on 10-inch platforms to what sounds like John Cage on the mandolin.)

Strip away the silk and circumstance, and "Memoirs of a Geisha" is a titillating tear-jerker about virtue corrupted and innocence rescued by men of means.

By the time Sayuri asks, "What do we know about entertaining Americans?" you want to say, "Honey, please, you've been doing it for two solid hours."


Page: 12



"Bizarre pet" in a fever
Aniston sues paparazzo, warns media over topless photos
Miss World contestants in swimsuits
  Today's Top News     Top Life News
 

Appeals on death penalty in open court

 

   
 

China confirm fifth human case of bird flu

 

   
 

US, China eye cooperation on Iraq, Iran

 

   
 

FM: Japan military 'gossiping' hides issue

 

   
 

Washroom bustup may have caused shooting

 

   
 

Deals take Sino-Czech relations to a new high

 

   
  Genetic map of dog may help humans
   
  Eastern lore, Western allure
   
  Online sex chat is privacy
   
  Artist captures spirit of Forbidden City
   
  'Swan Lake' takes an acrobatic twist
   
  China ready for face transplant operations
   
 
  Go to Another Section  
 
 
  Story Tools  
   
  Feature  
  Could China's richest be the tax cheaters?  
Manufacturers, Exporters, Wholesalers - Global trade starts here.
Advertisement
         
主站蜘蛛池模板: free性丰满白嫩白嫩的hd | 欧美做a欧美 | 中文国产成人精品久久一 | 亚洲高清国产品国语在线观看 | 久久久久久综合七次郎 | 一区在线视频 | 中文一级国产特级毛片视频 | 亚洲第一网站免费视频 | 国产日产欧产精品精品推荐小说 | 亚洲天堂视频在线免费观看 | 国产精品无圣光一区二区 | 99精品视频观看 | 日韩一区二区在线播放 | 久热草在线 | 日韩一区二区三区不卡视频 | 国产精品一区二区三区久久 | 精品三级国产一区二区三区四区 | 性视频福利在线看 | 国产精品欧美一区二区三区 | 狼人激情网 | 好看欧美视频高清va | 日韩亚洲成a人片在线观看 日韩亚洲精品不卡在线 | 美女在线网站免费的 | 亚洲久草视频 | 一级白嫩美女毛片免费 | 99热久久国产精品免费观看 | 91色久| 久热国产在线视频 | 国产一区二区三区在线观看影院 | 中文字幕咪咪网 | 日本韩国一级毛片中文字幕 | 欧美日韩专区国产精品 | 日本a级三级三级三级久久 日本a级特黄三级三级三级 | 亚洲手机看片 | 老太婆性杂交毛片 | 日本理论在线 | 韩国免又爽又刺激激情视频 | 成人三级在线播放线观看 | 成年女人aaaaa毛片 | 国产乱子伦真实china | 九七在线视频 |