#SUMMARY OF MEMORIES OF A GEISHA MOVIE#

That night, Hatsumomo nearly burns down the Okiya, which results in her departure. As Mameha has been hoping for, Mother subsequently chooses Sayuri over Pumpkin as her successor. Eventually, Sayuri becomes the most famous geisha in Kyoto, outshining both Mameha and Hatsumomo. Meanwhile, Hatsumomo has taken Pumpkin under her wing. Chiyo subsequently becomes a maiko, a geisha in training, and receives a new name, Sayuri. When Chiyo is 15, the other prominent geisha of Kyoto, Mameha (Michelle Yeoh), visits the Nitta Okiya to ask Mother to let her train Chiyo in the geisha arts. She keeps the handkerchief that he gives her and visits a nearby shrine to pray to the deity for her to become a geisha and meet the Chairman again. The meeting leaves a deep impression on Chiyo. One day, on a bridge over the River Sunagawa, she encounters Chairman (Ken Watanabe), who, after seeing her crying, buys her a shaved ice cone. The narrator of the film, a much older version of Chiyo, informs the audience that she never saw her sister again. She learns that her parents are dead, and her sister has managed to escape.

However, following a failed attempt to escape from the Okiya and flee somewhere else with her sister, Chiyo’s position in the Okiya is reverted to a maid again. Hatsumomo becomes jealous of not what Chiyo is now but what she can potentially become.Ĭhiyo enrolls in a geisha school, formally beginning her training. She finds a friend in Pumpkin (Youki Kudoh), a girl of her age, and an enemy in Hatsumomo (Gong Li), the sole active geisha of the Okiya and one of the two most prominent geisha of the city. Chiyo’s initial rebellious phase begins to wither away as she learns that there is little chance of finding her sister in the maze of tiled roofs that is the hanamachi. And Satsu is subsequently taken to a brothel.Ĭhiyo meets Kayoko “Mother” Nitta (Kaori Momoi), the current proprietor of the Okiya, and her predecessor, Grandmother (Kotoko Kawamura). After Auntie (Tsai Chin), one of the residents of the Nitta Okiya, sees both sisters, she only selects Chiyo.

The two sisters are then taken to a hanamachi (the district where the geisha live and perform) in Kyoto. After her mother falls ill, her father sells her and her sister Satsu, hoping that they will be accepted in a geisha house and send their earnings back home.

#SUMMARY OF MEMORIES OF A GEISHA MOVIE#

To stay in the loop on more movies like this, you can sign up for weekly Family Movie Night emails.Born in a small fishing Hamlet by the ocean, Chiyo leads an impoverished life with her family. Mature themes about sexism, exploitation, family separation, and sexual assault are all here, but they're softened by scenes that quickly fade to black as filmmakers hint at, rather than explicitly reveal, some of the movie's darker plot points. Bare shoulders and naked backs are visible. Characters have simulated sex (thrusting, partial nudity), adults socialize naked in a hot spring, and virginities are sold to the highest bidders. Expect to see civilians fleeing cities, tensions between geishas (one character sets fire to a house, leading to some frightening images), and sexual assault (not graphic). The story's questionable authenticity continues in the film, which casts A-list Chinese actors ( Gong Li and Ziyi Zhang) and Chinese Malaysian actor Michelle Yeoh to tell a distinctly Japanese story. It's based on the novel by Arthur Golden, which was a best-seller but became controversial after he was sued by retired geisha Mineko Iwasaki for defamation in 2001. Parents need to know that Memoirs of a Geisha is a fictional account of a geisha's life in Kyoto, Japan, before and after World War II.

Summary of memories of a geisha