'Memoirs of a Geisha': Its beauty is only skin-deep

The most obvious complaint about "Memoirs of a Geisha" is one that will leave many mainstream viewers unmoved: that this story of centuries-old Japanese traditions is told in English.

DreamWorks SKG 'Memoirs of a Geisha' 3 out of 5 stars Director: Rob Marshall Starring: Ziyi Zhang, Ken Watanabe, Gong Li, Michelle Yeoh, Youki Kudoh Run time: 145 minutes Release date: Dec. 9, 2005 Rating: PG-13 for mature subject matter and some sexual content. See showtimes On the web Official movie site View the trailer    Trailers require Quicktime Rate 'Memoirs of a Geisha'   Go see it   Make it a matinee   Wait to rent   Don't bother Voter Limit: Once per Hour View Poll Results

Yes, "Geisha" is desperate to reach a broad audience that is thought to abhor reading subtitles. (Wait, what about "Passion of the Christ"?) But shooting it in English negates the film's casting of such talented Asian performers. Leading actresses Ziyi Zhang and Michelle Yeoh have previously won us over in action movies, where dialogue was secondary. Here, exposition is essential, and forcing actors to speak English hurts both them (they're hobbled) and us (their accents are sometimes so thick we need subtitles anyway).

Japanese dialogue would be problematic as well, since the stars hail from China, Malaysia, and elsewhere in addition to Japan. But the actors' difficulties would be less visible to the film's intended American audience, and we wouldn't have to guess what they're saying.

Speaking of handicaps: Except when we're seeing her crooked smile, Ziyi Zhang is almost unrecognizable behind the blue-gray contact lenses she must wear to match her character's most identifiable feature. For an actress whose charisma is already outstripped by her co-stars, additional hurdles seem cruel.

But the subtitle issue isn't the only place where ironing this tale out for Westerners fails to make it more understandable. Take the issue at the story's heart: what it means to be a geisha. We learn quickly that a geisha is not simply a prostitute. She is a walking work of art, trained to embody various ideals of feminine grace. Yet even as Zhang is told repeatedly that "we sell our skills, not our bodies," we see two contradictory geisha traditions, one of which involves the outright auctioning off of a novice's virginity. That sounds a lot like prostitution to this Westerner, and the film is unwilling to acknowledge the contradiction, much less explain how it is rationalized by Japanese society.

In truth, "Geisha" is not interested in explaining anything. It wants us so overwhelmed with its exotic visual pleasures — the scenery, kimonos, and such — that we miss the familiarity of the story itself, in which a mistreated little girl meets a knight in shining armor (Ken Watanabe, of "The Last Samurai") and dedicates her life to becoming worthy of him. A more interesting subplot, in which that naive girl becomes enmeshed in a power struggle for control of her geisha house (this is where Michelle Yeoh and Gong Li enter, and steal, the picture) is dropped long before the movie's end, when World War II punctures this insular world.

But if studio chiefs were so hungry for ravishing images that they would sacrifice narrative depth to get them, why did they hire Rob Marshall, the Broadway-trained director of "Chicago"? Why not Zhang Yimou ("Hero"), who has more visual flair stored up in his appendix than is displayed in this whole pretty but unspectacular movie?

Yes, Zhang Yimou is Chinese and this is a story of Japan. But such inconsistencies didn't bother the casting director. No — clearly what was important here was not authenticity but the illusion of it. Not transcendence, but entertainment just foreign enough to convince undemanding viewers they've been taken someplace new.