Wednesday, January 18, 2006

Memoirs of a Geisha

I went to see the movie Memoirs of a Geisha last night. I have read the book before, and have done some research on Geishas, including having seen some perform at a special exhibit from a Kyoto Geiko (a geisha trainee) and Maiko (a full geisha) once, so I was interested to see how the movie would hold up. On the whole, I found it very entertaining and was happily surprised to see that it followed the book very closely.
昨日の晩「Memoirs of a Geisha」(さゆり)と言う映画を見た。本を読んだことがある。 芸者の事を少しい研究した。芸子一人と舞妓一人の音曲を見たことがある。全体的に見ると、映画は楽しく本と大体同じである。

The part where she did the dance as the lead dancer didn't feel kind of right. It was not like any Japanese dance I had ever seen before. The dance she did seemed more like a modern dance than a traditional Japanese dance.
でも独唱のダンスの時、ちょっと変と思う。日本舞踊みたくない。代わりにモダンダンスみたいと思う。

Also, after the war when Sayuri was entertaining the soldiers, it was strange how either she and the other Japanese suddenly could speak in English, or that the soldiers could speak in Japanese. Learning a foriegn language is very difficult. I guess movies are allowed to take some liberties.
そして終戦後にさゆりさんと他の日本人は英語がとても上手になった。それともアメリカの軍士は日本語がぺらぺらだ。外国語を学ぶのはとても難しいだ。映画だね。

2 Comments:

At 8:12 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Though I haven't read,and haven't watch this movie yet...
I hear that it's the movie of good repute in Japan too..(Japanese title is "Sayuri")
Zhang Ziyi is very beautiful actor.
I watched her other works before.
"the Hero" "Lovers"..so nice acction scene.
(Anyway, My little sis's name Sayuri too.hahah~)

 
At 9:13 PM, Blogger California Kayaker Magazine said...

Thanks for stopping by and posting.

On the bulletin board Mixi.jp, there was a conversation about why Chinese actresses were used for a Japanese movie. It was suggested that the top Japanese actresses could not speak English well enough for American audiences.

 

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