Review of Geisha by ST... :D

Jan 23, 2006

The Twit-light Samurai Memoirs Of A Geisha is like a Japanese Mean Girls in heavy make-up all competing to be Numero Uno Kimino

By Tay Yek Keak

I HAVEN'T read the book Memoirs Of A Geisha.

I don't think I will until I've read Memoirs Of A Geezer, Memoirs Of A Gusher and Memoirs Of A Glazer, which any football fan will know, would be written by one of the fat cats who took over Manchester United.

I have seen, however, Memoirs Of A Geisha the movie and, let me tell you, it's so hilarious I was still laughing in the loo just now.

Because in extreme naivety, I was expecting an inscrutable, esoteric Japanese movie like The Twilight Samurai.

But it turned out to be The Twit-light Samurai, unveiling the mysterious world of the geisha as a giant theme park.

What was I thinking?

The film is made, of course, by Caucasians for Caucasians, and its director Rob Marshall, the theatre fella who made Chicago, is a chap whose unsubtle, burlesque style is perfectly suited to Crazy Horse: The Musical.

If you haven't been to that strip show here, wait for the film.

Anyway, the first thing to know about Memoirs is that it's about Japan.

To be precise, Japantown, USA.

It is a wondrous place full of Asian people who behave exactly like people who have lived in the middle of Los Angeles all their lives.

This would explain why Memoirs is filmed like an action movie with a very lively camera and actresses so expressive that surely, they must have graduated top of the class from Drama Mama High.

Now I've never been to Japan, not even to a J-Pop store, but I've seen enough Japanese movies to know that sometimes you go and buy Toto when you see their actors move at least one thing on their faces.

But in Memoirs, it's roller-coaster time because bitter rivals Zhang Ziyi and Gong Li go at it the way Jennifer Aniston and Angelina Jolie would if they were seated on the mat in the same Brad Pitt appreciation class in an okiya.

Okiya, meaning geisha house, is, by the way, one of the exotic terms you learn from the film, including maiko (apprentice geisha), danna (rich, sleazy guy who gives money) and the fascinating mizuage (not to be confused with Mitsubishi), a rite of passage thingy which basically represents 'virginity'.

In the movie, Ziyi's mizuage is the subject of a bidding war, although, as far as I can tell, eBay bidding wasn't entertained.

But Memoirs entertained because deep down, it's really a heavily powdered b***h fest of girls who compete to be the Numero Uno Kimono.

It's Mean Girls with more hysterics, more fabric and more make-up than the counters at Isetan.

To be the top gal, Ziyi gets tutored by Michelle Yeoh, whose role is to play Mrs Miyagi, spiritual mate of the late Pat Morita's Mr Miyagi, the sensei who coached Ralph Macchio in The Karate Kid.

Michelle says the immortal line: 'A true geisha can stop a man in his tracks with a single look.'

To which I would humbly like to add 'a true loanshark', 'a true transvestite' and 'a true income tax man with an audit in his hand', too.

Besides Mrs Miyagi, Ziyi is also befriended by a girl named Pumpkin, the one character who befuddled me throughout the film.

Despite many things happening, I just couldn't shake off just why in blue heaven was Pumpkin called Pumpkin when everyone else is named Sayuri, Mameha, Hatsumomo and maybe Ajinomoto.

It's like being called Ezekiel among Ah Beng, Ah Seng and Ah Kow.

There's a guy in the show though called Dr Crab who's one of the bidders for Ziyi's mizuage.

In the deep recesses of my mind, I kept hollering to Ziyi not to take up his offer because when a fella named Crab wants your body, who knows what clap he may give you.

Clap, like hanamachi for geisha district, also means gonorrhea.

The person I clapped for most in Memoirs is, of course, Gong Li as super nasty geisha Hashimomo.

She's very jealous of Ziyi and, at one point, did a Margaret Chan's 'I shall kkrrruusshhh you like a cockroach' on her by warning breathlessly, 'I shall destroy you'.

Gong Li's the life of the party who literally sets the whole place on fire.

I adore her so much I want to be her danna with the $19.60 in my wallet.

She's so happening that when she exited the histrionics, I opened the window of the okiya in my heart and screamed: 'Come back. Slap me, I'm yours.'


Copyright © 2005 Singapore Press Holdings. All rights reserved. Privacy Statement & Condition of Access.