| Category: | Movies |
| Genre: | Drama |
i had very low expectations after reading all the bad reviews the film received in the States. oh well, at the end of the day, you're your own best film reviewer.
at worst, i thought, i'd just enjoy the sumptuous cinematography. all the critics, even those who dissed the film, mentioned this fact. at best, i'd love the movie. after all, Steven Spielberg (who initially considered directing this) was the producer.
I'm glad to say that I really liked the movie. not loved it, but it's definitely worth owning on dibidi.
first off, Memoirs is beautiful to look at. the last movie that looked this postcard picture perfect was Hero, starring Jet Li. in some scenes, pay careful attention to the camera work, that glides and flows just like a Geisha would.
2nd, the musical score works. how could it not, with Yo Yo Ma on cello, and Yitzhak Perlman on solo violin. very spare, very melancholy. actually, the whole score will remind you very much of that of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon....
3rd, speaking of that Ang Lee classic (with no gay cowboys), it's fine to see the elegant Michelle Yeoh (definitely aging gracefully) onscreen with the fiery Zhang Zhiyi once again!!! while there's no swordplay between them, there is a nighttime rooftop escape scene in Geisha very reminiscent of a certain favorite part of Crouching Tiger.
4th, Gong Li is still a hottie!
5th, the costumes, sets, production design are all Oscar-caliber.
6th, Ted Levine, one of my favorite character actors (the nutty Frank Hollman in Crime Story, and Buffalo Bill in Silence of the Lambs), makes a surprise appearance.
and 7th, Ken Watanabe (who out-acted Tom Cruise mercilessly in The Last Samurai), comes up with another noble performance.
the story is pretty simple. it wouldn't be out of place in a telenovela or a Magpakailanman episode about GROs turned Bold Stars. however, they way it's told, with a certain sense of Japanese restraint in place of pure Pinoy histrionics, works out very well.
my only real beef with the movie is that it's in English. it would've been much more effective emotionally if the actors phonetically recited their lines in Nihongo.
..... which is exactly what Michelle Yeoh did anyway with her Mandarin dialogue in Crouching Tiger (she speaks Fookien and Cantonese, but not the dialect of Mainland China).
