I thought the movie was fantastic, especially coming off the heels of the worldwide thunder dud Memoirs of a Geisha but also because it's a unique look at Edo era oiran from a Japanese perspective that's not pandering to the Western gaze. See it if you are able, it's coming to Region 2 DVD with English subtitles on August 3rd.
http://www.twitchfilm.net/archives/009993.html
http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/ff20070223a1.html
Please don't take this as rudeness, but just for the record, the film is about tayuu, or courtesans, particularly the highest ranking ones (oiran). They were the real prostitutes of the pleasure quarters, not the geisha (who were essentially performers and professional conversationalists), and you can always tell them easily from geisha by the absolute /arsenal/ of golden ornaments in their hair.
Geisha do make a brief appearance in the film, though, as the ladies in comparatively prim black kimono and simple hair ornaments, dancing and singing for Higurashi and her samurai beau. :)
Arghhhhh they are not Geisha damn it
shareArghhhhh they are not Geisha damn it
The OP goes on about pandering to the western gaze yet doesn't know the difference between a geisha and oiran and gets offended with an offhand remark. Oh the irony.
Mark Schilling and the rest of those Japan Times reviewers are okay reviewing Japanese films but readers are better off getting reveiws of others films from different sources.
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And you know, there are ways to correct someone without being a total ass about it.
YOU and BSY: Don't be *beep* You aren't gatekeepers so stop acting like it. The guy made a common mistake not because he was a moron but because, like so many things about Japan, the information is not easily found unless you are looking for it. Correcting someone like they are stupid or have 'done it again! ARRRGH!', is what *beep* do who think that their knowledge gives them licence. The first response here was fine, the subsequent posts were not. I understand the OP getting annoyed, and really you two have no right to serve it to him because some insecure armchair knowitalls provoked him. Knowledge is not a privaledge - it is shared. It is pretty clear that you come from the 'get it right the first time' school of life. It doesn't work.
shareThanks for your timely response.
Quite right, knowledge is not a privilege and is shared. Google is a spectacular thing.
It's not so much that he couldn't get it right the first time. It's that he can't take criticism without getting defensive. Therefore, I come from the school of "Grow a thicker skin or GTFO."
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"My God, my country, my Harley Davidson. But not necessarily in that order."