The exquisite Gong looks like a gift that keeps on giving when trussed up in silk, but she and the film come most alive when her hair tumbles down and she sashays about the okiya, stirring the air with her tremulous rage. Having seen a very different future for herself in the gray eyes of the new girl, Hatsumomo directs all that fury toward her eradication. In time, this enmity will assume soap-operatic proportions and involve the rival geisha Mameha (Yeoh), who takes Sayuri on as a trainee, and the two businessmen whose attentions consume so much of the women's and the story's time: the Chairman (Ken Watanabe, the majestic hunk from The Last Samurai) and his partner and friend, Nobu (the great Japanese actor Koji Yakusho).
Marshall can't rescue the film from its embarrassing screenplay or its awkward Chinese-Japanese-Hollywood culture klatch, but Memoirs of a Geisha is one of those bad Hollywood films that by virtue of their production values nonetheless afford a few dividends, in this case, fabulous clothes and three eminently watchable female leads.
Although there are moments when Hatsumomo comes perilously close to Dragon Lady caricature ("I will destroy you!"), the actress' talent and dignity keep the performance from sliding into full-blown camp. But even the formidable Gong cannot surmount the ruinous decision to have her and Zhang, along with the poorly used Yakusho, deliver their lines in vaguely British-sounding English that imparts an unnatural halting quality to much of their dialogue. The. Result. Is. That. Each. Word. Of. Dialogue. Sounds. As. If. It. Were. Punctuated. By. A. Full. Stop. Which. Robs. The.
Language. Of. Its. Watery. Flow. And. Breath. Of. Real. Life. Even. As. It. Also. Gives. New. Meaning. To. The. Definition. Of. The. Period. Movie.
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