Geisha film raises eyebrows in Japan 

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.

But a day ahead of the world premiere, some in Japan were wondering why homegrown talent was shut out of the leading roles in a film that celebrates Japan's unique culture.

Harsher comments have come from China, where bitter feelings over Japan's 1931-45 occupation of parts of the country make the idea of Chinese playing geisha unacceptable to some.

Based on a best-selling novel, backed by Steven Spielberg and directed by Rob Marshall of the multiple Oscar-winning Chicago, Memoirs has generated enormous media interest.

The cast adds up to Asia's A-list, with China's Ziyi Zhang starring as Sayuri, a poor fisherman's daughter who transforms herself into a legend of Kyoto's mysterious entertainment world in the 1930s.

The two other leading roles are played by Gong Li, also of China, and ethnic Chinese Malaysian actress Michelle Yeoh, with Japanese performers relegated to secondary roles.

Memoirs, reported to have cost its makers $85 million, can ill afford to alienate moviegoers in Japan, the second biggest market for Hollywood films.

But some have already expressed anger at what they see as a cavalier attitude to the subtleties of traditional costume and dance in a movie largely shot on a specially built set in California.

"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.

"We should boycott this film and send a clear message to Hollywood. Why on earth have they made a film making fun of the Japanese, when they cannot get by without us?" the blog continued.

Chinese bloggers were outraged.

"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.

Dressed in an off-white cocktail dress with her hair piled high, Zhang told a packed news conference she saw the film as a step forward for Asian actors.

"I am really grateful to Rob Marshall for giving us this incredible chance to show the whole world Asian actors' ability," she said on Monday. "We can do so much more than people think."

Artistic impression

In Kyoto, the centre of Japan's traditional arts, the reaction was more circumspect, in keeping with the western Japanese city's customary discretion.

"It's a Hollywood movie. It's just entertainment, so what can we do?" said an official at the Kyoto Traditional Musical Art Foundation, which promotes the music, dance and other arts of old Japan. "Hollywood has always done things like ignoring history."

"Complaining about it will just focus attention on it, so we plan to ignore it," he added, saying that the foundation had turned down requests to take part in promotional events connected with the premiere.

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.

And some Japanese who saw the preview were pleasantly surprised.

"It was strange, but not in a bad way," said one magazine writer, who declined to be identified. "I think because they are foreigners they have been able to create a vision of Japanese beauty that we could not, because we would be trying to recreate reality," she added.

Japan has a record of accepting Hollywood versions of itself without complaint. Industry reports said The Last Samurai (2003), starring Tom Cruise and set in 19th century Japan, grossed more in Japan than in the United States.

Memoirs of a Geisha caused controversy in Japan long before it became a movie.

Mineko Iwasaki, the main inspiration for Arthur Golden's book, sued the author for failing to maintain her privacy, after he described such practices as "mizuage" or the selling of a young geisha's virginity to the highest bidder, which she has been reported as saying does not exist.