USA: "Memoirs of a Geisha" Hollywood premiere full of mystique and charm.

The cast of "Memoirs of a Geisha" brought its Eastern charms and mystique to the Hollywood premiere of the film on Sunday (December 4). The movie is based on the best-selling novel, "Memoirs of a Geisha" by Arthur Golden. It follows one woman, "Sayuri Nitta" played by Ziyi Zhang, who, as a young girl, is sold by her parents to become a Geisha. The romantic epic depicts her blossoming into a woman, falling in love, and becoming the Japanese artist-entertainer that is geisha. Michelle Yeoh, who plays the role of geisha instructor to Sayuri says learning geisha artistry for the movie was not easy. "We had what we called the seven rooms of torture. We had six weeks to learn, in a very short period of time what geisha spend their lifetimes perfecting. We had to learn the music, playing the shamisen. We had to learn to walk in the kimono to make it flutter. Then we had to learn to kneel, to dance, pouring sake holding the cup, what to do when you are entertaining the clients and because when there are two tables set around when they are entertaining and when the move across they don't all the time stand up and walk, when they are kneeling the manage to very gracefully slide," Yeoh said. Ken Watanabe, who plays "The Chairman," the love interest of Sayuri, was one of the few Japanese leads in the movie. When asked whether the movie was an authentic presentation of Japanese culture, he said, "This movie is not about right or wrong. It is not a movie about Japanese authenticity. It is more about the beautiful world that Rob Marshall wanted to express and as a human being I wanted to make it happen." The fact that the three leading women in the movie (and much of the cast,) which portrays Japanese culture, are all of Chinese descent has been controversial. Furthermore, the majority of the movie was shot in California, not in Japan. Director Rob Marshall explained the decision to shoot in the U.S., saying: "In Japan, we found that everything was so modernized - we couldn't find streets that didn't have wires and electric signs. So it was clear we were going to have to build. We brought everything over from Japan. We had to do pre-war and post-war and we had to do all four seasons so it made sense to contain it. We spent two weeks in Japan, which was fantastic, and I think it blends beautifully." Arthur Golden, the American novelist who wrote the book, Memoirs of a Geisha, said director Rob Marshall understood, "what was involved in adapting the novel quite faithfully to the screen and has done a beautiful job of it." 'Memoirs of a Geisha' opens nationally in the U.S. on December 9th.

ITN Source | December 17, 2005

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