[Hildy]

ROFLMAO!!!! Hollywood and diversity...hey...I guess Mickey Rooney wasn't available!!!!

[Hildy]

ROLFMAO

[Mr. Jeeves]

Zhang Ziyi and Gong Li in the same film? I'm there. ;)

[apackof2]

"She's sold her soul and betrayed her country. Hacking her to death would not be good enough," China's state media quoted one blogger as saying of Zhang.

Yikes!

Zhang might not be making a trip home very soon

[silverleaf]

The culture that produced movies like "Godzilla meets Mothra" is indignant about Hollywood taking license with reality?

[visualops]

" Director Marshall has long emphasised that he was not trying to create an accurate picture of the Japan of the 1930s and that he felt he had chosen the best actors for each role, regardless of nationality. "The challenge for me was to bring that world to life. For me, it is an artistic impression of that world," he said on Monday.

I supposed he can create whatever the heck he wants, but why *not* accurately represent Geisha dance?
Maybe he just wanted an Asian version of Splashdance.

[wideawake]

"According to this film, 'geisha' dance in a bizarre fashion, as if they were in a Los Angeles strip show," one Japanese film fan complained on a Web log, or blog, adding that the lights and special effects were more reminiscent of modern Las Vegas than old Kyoto.

As anachronistic as that seems, it cannot compare with the absolutely ridiculous J Lo dance routine performed by Reese Witherspoon in Vanity Fair.

A lascivious dance routine performed to a 21st century hiphop arrangement involving women of respectable family before a mixed audience in the royal presence in the early 1800s?

Silliest thing I've seen on film in years.

[Kirkwood]

[CaptainK]

Chicago was overrated and the musical numbers gave me motion sickness. I'm expecting Rob Marshall will repeat his MTV directorial style with this one.

[Kirkwood]

I've been working off and on in Japan for many years and one of the surprising things I learned was how ignorant even the well-educated Japanese are about their own country and culture. I knew much more than they knew and was explaining things to their amazement. Of course I don't mean to cast a bad light on the Japanese, because many in the US are totally ignorant of our history. However, I wonder how many Japanese truly know all the details about life for geishas in the time period of this story.

As an aside, I was shown the house in Kyoto where Saruyi was said to have lived and I could imagine her escaping on the roof as a child so she could find her sister.

[theFIRMbss]

>TOKYO (Reuters) - A dream team of movie stars from China and Japan gathered in Tokyo on Monday to promote "Memoirs of a Geisha," the first big-budget Hollywood romance to feature an almost entirely Asian cast

The commentary
(with Buffy!) about Japan
I thought was better

than the film itself.
(Sarah walked into a post
watching a geisha . . .)

[dennisw]

Good book ... I read it.

[MattinNJ]

Hollywood can't hold a candle to Japan, South Korea, or China when it comes to film making...And I am not just talking old school (Kurosawa) either.

I dare Hollywood to make a movie as good as China's "House of Flying Daggers" (stunning), South Korea's "Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance" (brutal, slow descent into hell as kidnapping plan goes awry), or Japan's "Audition" (Fatal Attraction on steroids-truly sick and twisted).

Let Hollywood keep making movies about gay cowboys. I love to watch liberals lose their money.

For every "Saving Private Ryan" there is a "Brotherhood of War" (Korean Civil War movie where Americans are worshipped).

[longtermmemmory]

Gee hollyweird botching history yet again.

[rlmorel]

I remember how upset some people were because there weren't enough "people of color" in "Saving Private Ryan". Sheesh.