'Memoirs of a Geisha' favors drama over details

The screenplay focuses on one section of the novel by Arthur Golden.
By JAMI BERNARD
New York Daily News
In the luxuriant "Memoirs of a Geisha," three of the biggest and loveliest stars of Chinese cinema -- Ziyi Zhang, Michelle Yeoh and Gong Li -- sharpen their talons.
They put on an Oscar-worthy cat fight in this long-awaited adaptation of the best seller about the secret life of geishas, those ladies who were trained to please, flatter and pour tea with just the right amount of bare wrist showing.
The movie may be set in prewar Japan, but it's pure 1940s Hollywood. There's costume, pageantry, melodrama, the feeling of a sweeping epic without the bother of too much accuracy, equal doses of heartbreak and uplift -- not to mention it was filmed mostly in California.
Grand romance
The strength of Arthur Golden's novel was the meticulousness with which it detailed the regimented geisha life, right down to the threads in their kimonos. But the movie has been turned into a grand, old-fashioned romance -- which is why it's not such a big deal that Chinese women are playing Japanese roles. It's just showbiz.
The screenplay focuses on one part of the book, streamlining it into a story about a girl's nearly lifelong quest to hook up with a man she feels is her soul mate, who once treated her to flavored ices when he found her crying in the street, a lonely, frightened, joyless child.
Geishas, by the way, were not permitted to have soul mates -- and this provides the crux of the drama.
If timid geisha-in-training Sayuri (Zhang) had worn a ball gown instead of a kimono, and if her high-stacked sandals had been glass slippers, and if her deadly, gorgeous rival Hatsumomo (Gong) had been an ugly stepsister, then these memoirs could have been just a shade more familiar.
The difference is that Cinderella's virginity wasn't auctioned off after a fierce, public bidding war.
Being a geisha was a type of performance art, despite its uncomfortable similarity to prostitution. But which little girl dreams of growing up to cater solely to drunken boors and never have a love of her own?
As a child, Sayuri is sold into this lifestyle by desperately poor parents. Eventually, she is forced to face two options -- to spend her days sweeping up after glamorous geishas who look down on her, or to study hard and become one herself.
Sayuri grabs for the silk-and-satin ring.
Blessed with milky, grayish-blue eyes -- "She's got water in her!" everyone notes, which is apparently a good thing -- Sayuri grows up to be a carefully tutored heartbreaker.
Aesthetic appeal
The perks of the job include the most sensuous, dazzling collection of kimonos ever put to screen (costume-design Oscar alert!), and the occasional opportunity to brush prettily against the thigh of the Chairman -- a handsome wheeler-dealer played by dashing Ken Watanabe. Ironically, he is also the man who once comforted a young Sayuri with ices on the street.
The Chairman is clearly interested, but geishas are nothing if not about protocol, and so Prince Charming's boss is entitled to first dibs. The only upside is that the forbidden would-be lovers get to repress their desires nobly, tears glistening in their eyes, as the John Williams score swells.
Steven Spielberg was to direct this movie but took "Munich" instead. Here, he serves as producer while Rob Marshall directs. As with his Oscar-winning "Chicago," Marshall oversees a story with a hotbed of female backbiting.
Zhang does a fine job in her eye-candy role as the deceptively sturdy Sayuri, and Yeoh brings a touch of class and dignity as Sayuri's politically savvy mentor.
But the wide obi of victory is draped around Gong, ferociously perfect as the jealous, scheming, vindictive, desperate Hatsumomo. This is some of the best screen bitchery since "All About Eve," and it's conducted with the same silky deliberation as the turn of a geisha's wrist.
Just as in "Raise the Red Lantern" (also with Gong), this movie is about the power of the powerless -- the terrible things women do to each other when they're fighting for the same scraps.
But, thanks to that ol' Hollywood razzle-dazzle, the emphasis is on the sweet pain of forbidden love, which seals this movie's bright prospects with a kiss.