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Hello everyone! Welcome to the Book Nook. Today we are going to be doing an adaptation review on Memoirs of a Geisha. I absolutely loved the book (review here) and the movie was no exception. Before we get started, I encourage you all to comment down below and tell me your thoughts. Also, make sure you are following the Book Nook on WordPress, Instagram and YouTube; that way you don’t miss any of my reviews in the future. So, without further ado, lets get into it.

Just to give a bit of background, Memoirs of a Geisha is about a young child, named Chiyo (later known as Sayuri), who is sold to an okiya and works as a maid. As time goes on Chiyo becomes a Geisha.

I base my adaptation reviews on three things; characterization, plot and general thoughts.

The characterization of the movie was pretty accurate. The cast is star-studded with Michelle Yeoh as Mameha and Ken Wantanabe as the Chairman. There is also Gong Li as Hatsumomo and Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa as the Baron. Yeoh and Watanabe are the main two actors I recognized. Li was in Hannibal Rising which I have seen. However, I’ve only seen it once and so I don’t really remember her like that. Tagawa’s face also looks familiar to me but none of the movies he was in really rang a bell to me either. The two actresses who play young Chiyo, Suzuka Ohgo, and older Chiyo, Zhang Ziyi, did a great job. I will say that in the book they made the character of Mother seem like an old, unattractive hag. However, Kaori Momoi who plays her in the movie is not unattractive. The same goes with Koji Yakusho who plays Nobu. In the book Nobu endured sever burns to one side of his body due to him being in the war. He is also missing an arm. With that being said, Nobu is presented as extremely unattractive. But in the movie Yakusho is not that bad to look at. I guess because it’s Hollywood the characters can’t be too gross. The actor who plays the Baron was interesting. The Baron is portrayed to be this big, boisterous, loud man in the book but Tagawa is not big at all and has a silent intimidation about him. However, the movie was beautifully casted and everyone did a great job.

I did have a question about the ages of Hatsumomo and Mameha. In the book, both women are in their twenties. Although Li and Yeoh were around the same age when the movie was released, Li has more of a “baby-face” while Yeoh is visible more mature-looking. With that being said, I wondered if Yeoh was intentionally suppose to be older than Hatsumomo. If that was the case; then great. If not, then to me, it wasn’t believable that Mameha was suppose to be in her twenties.

In terms of plot, the plot is pretty accurate to the book. The fate of Hatsumomo was different. Instead of her being kicked out of the okiya, she purposely left and never came back. In addition, the ending was cut short. In the book, Sayuri does become the mistress of the Chairman and leads a specific life because of it. However, we don’t get to see that life in the movie and that was disappointing.

My last general thought is that I loved the relationship between Mameha and Sayuri. In the book, their relationship was business-like. In the movie, the relationship was still business-like but you can tell that Mameha genuinely cared for Sayuri and her well-being. I’m glad we got to see that personal side of things.

All in all, I enjoyed this movie tremendously. The casting was excellent, the plot was accurate and I enjoyed the relationship between Mameha and Sayuri.

Accuracy wise: 4.5/5

Overall: 5/5

Until next time!