Brilliant and touching

An absolute waste of money

Very good movie overall, highly recommended. Most of the negative reviews don't have any merit and are all pollitically based. Give this movie a chance at least, and it might give you a different perspective.

Story: It's very simple but honestly that is fine.

Sure is colorful. There's a lot to write about when discussing this film but very little of it has to do with the story: In eighteenth-century Japan, a young girl is sold to a brothel by her mother; she's rebellious and tries to escape all the time; she's more talented and beautiful than all the other girls (suspension of disbelief required); she becomes an oiran (in the hierarchy of prostitutes, sort of like a four-star general in the army).It's not that the story is bad or unimportant, it's that everything else about the film screams "Look at me! Look at me!" The sets and costuming, the soundtrack, and the casting of a mixed-race Polish/Japanese version of Courtney Love in the lead role all go against type. And one cannot help but notice that this is not Memoirs of a Geisha. Insight from the nearly sixty second montage of naked female breasts near the beginning of the film might be missed if one doesn't notice that the director Mika Ninagawa, the art director Namiko Iwashiro, the music director Ringo Shiina, the producer Chikako Nakabayashi, the scriptwriter Yuki Tanada, and the artist of the original manga Moyoco Anno are all women.The film is beautiful to look at, if a little over-indulgent at times. No attempt is made to be true to the period. I don't speak Japanese, and subtitles are always deficient in nuance, but I'm sure the dialog is straight off the streets of contemporary Tokyo and not in any Edo period parlance. The mannerisms and delivery, and even the subtitles suggest this, and it's one of the things about the film I'm undecided about. I'm not generally a fan of costume dramas or period pieces so on the one hand I was interested in seeing this modernized production, but on the other hand I felt a sense of incongruity while watching it. The bold colors of the sets and costumes didn't bother me but the soundtrack is a little odd. Not so much in the style—which swims through many modern genres of pop, rock, and jazz—as in the reverb. The music often doesn't sound like it is in the same size room as the action that is taking place. I like Ringo Shiina's music, have a few of her solo CDs and those of Tokyo Jihen, the band she also plays in. It's not that I think the music is bad, or that it is too terribly out of place. I think the sound design could have been better, and I think that some of the folks who find the soundtrack a little jarring would be less put off by it if more attention had been paid to the overall sound design.Finally, I was not won over by Anna Tsuchiya in the lead role. I'm sure casting her was a well-thought out conscious decision by the director and I also, in theory, think she fits the package the director was trying to deliver. It's not that she doesn't look 'traditionally' Japanese, whatever that is. And it's not that she lacks a certain elegance I've come to expect of these types of characters, although I'm not surprised by the omission of her doing any of the arty things these pre-geisha geisha types were supposed to be fluent in like music, poetry, dancing, or witty conversation. It might be that she just isn't a very good actress. These rock star cum actress types often possess great charisma that passes itself off as good acting in the right context. I'm not sure this is one of them. I hope I haven't spoiled it for potential viewers by bringing up Courtney Love, but that's what it felt like to me, a little vulgar and somewhere between disappointing and distracting. Tsuchiya is a lot more attractive in her own musical environment than she is in this film. I just didn't buy her as a sophisticated beauty who rises to the top. Maybe I'm just upset that Yoshino Kimura is given short-shrift in the fake eyelash department or that the truly beautiful and engaging Miho Kanno is dispatched with too early in the film.

I just realized why the colors and sets in "Sakuran" were so flashy and gaudy, and just painful to look at. The story is about a high-class prostitute known as an oiran in Japanese. Their kimono were always flashier and gaudier than other kimono so that the oiran would stand out. But the director, Mika Ninagawa, had to make sure that the director stood out even more than the main character, or even the story. What Anna Tsuchiya did in the movie just gave me the creeps. You couldn't call it acting. It was nothing more than catering to her flipped-out, high-school-girl fan base. Hey Anna, good luck on that one as you get older. Yeah, right, an oiran as a crude and vulgar, prone- to-violence, biker chick. Didn't we already see you portray this character in a more appropriate movie?The story was painfully boring and predictable. What is the story of "Sakuran"? An obnoxious little bitch ever remains true to her self which is just that: an obnoxious bitch. She finds that, inexplicably, men are attracted to her and that she has an unexplained ability to manipulate men and becomes a successful, high-class prostitute even though she talks and behaves like she's a member of a female biker gang. This so-called seductive ability of hers is talked about but we never see it in action, probably due to the ineptitude of the main, pretend-phony-biker chick, I mean "actress." The main character of the movie makes a wealthy and powerful man angry at her because she keeps him waiting while she services a much more lowly customer. Not very oiran-like, is it? How could such a woman ever become an oiran? Oh, because the previous oiran got herself killed and the house needed a whore that could demand a high price. Who would pay a high price for a slut so cheap? Rumors get around. How could there be no repercussions for what she did to the powerful guy? Because the screenwriters are dolts. They just made up a bunch of crap.Then an even more wealthy and powerful guy falls for her (why?) and she throws him over for a penniless guy who is generally cold and distant toward her but respects who she really is (which doesn't make sense. How can anyone respect someone so worthless?).Speaking of crap, it's like the director squatted down and took a huge, psychedelic-colored dump on the aesthetics, culture, and society of the Edo Period. What of such things as sabi, mono no aware, wabi, subtlety, elegance, a rigidly hierarchical society? All shat upon by a director who comes off as a senseless, nouveau-riche parvenu. The amazing thing is that so many other Japanese, in watching this movie, squatted down around the director and took steaming spoonfuls of this blazing-colored stinking crap and exclaimed how tasty it was.Argentinean tango music with violin and bandoneon as backdrop for the Edo Period when Japan was totally isolated from the international world (except for the 3.7 acres of Dejima)? Why not just have Anna, the bad-ass-biker oiran, answer her cell phone and the rich and powerful daimyo character drive off in a hissy fit in his red Ferrari? The music we had to listen to was jarring and anachronistic (the same as the art design). Near the ending, I liked that there were only two or three tiny flowers on the shrine cherry tree. But, earlier, the second she said she would leave the quarters when it bloomed, we all knew exactly what would happen. How boring, to telegraph the ending so clearly. But what's the point of the old tree blooming? That rich and powerful guy already made the pleasure quarters bloom in cherry blossoms like the mountains of Yoshino in spring. That didn't impress her at all? No, of course not. I already know that about whores. The guys that treat them nicely get kicked in the balls. Maybe it bugs the whores to have people idealize them when they themselves know the truth of who they are: just cheap and worthless.Considering the director's obsession with goldfish, the second to last scene should have been of a goldfish bowl on a verandah accidentally knocked over. Two fish tumble into a stream which carries them off to escape beyond the walls of the pleasure quarters, belying how goldfish are stuck in their bowl and can't survive outside (just like the denizen's relationship with the pleasure quarters). Otherwise the talk of the fate of goldfish has no meaning.In the final scene the cherry trees were full in bloom, but the brevity of the blooms is one thing special about cherry blossoms. I couldn't help thinking that soon enough dusk would wipe away all the soft pink color and warmth from the scene. The sky would go quickly from hints of shadow, into an ever- deepening gloom, and night would fall. It would become cold, very cold. And dark. That really wasn't a happy ending, was it? Romantic love (in the Edo Period?) could survive in the face of terrible poverty and being ostracized for about as long as those cherry trees bloomed. Maybe a few days, unless it rained sooner. But the unconsummated romantic love we see here? It's existence in this period is incomprehensible.Anna Tsuchiya walking in the shoes of an oiran? She couldn't do it. Literally. Check out the scene of her "promenade" where she seems to have the correct footwear on but she has to hold on to some guy's shoulder to keep from tumbling on her ass.I was going to give this movie two stars for the art direction but then I realized what that was all about: sick dominance on the part of the director. Those colors and sets are just the way the director has of screaming, "I'm the most important one here! Me! It's all about me!!!!"

This film, from the first frame, is visually stunning. The colors are so vibrant they jump out at you, kind of like the great "Memories Of Matsuko". The story relates the lives of courtesans, mostly Kiyoha, played by the beautiful Anna Tsuchiya. They picked the right actress for this part, she is as visually stunning as the colors. The story traces her life from childhood as a courtesan, her lovers and all the trials she goes through. The film has nudity in it, which makes sense in this film's context, but it doesn't appear too gratuitous. This is the kind of film you'd want to watch in a theater or on an hdtv. It makes you appreciate the director's aim more. All in all, a good to very good film, which held my interest. I have never seen Ms. Tsuchiya in a film before, but, based on this, I will. Go see it.

Ninagawa Mika's "Sakuran" is a gorgeous, vibrant and simply beautiful movie. Stunningly visual, lavish and absolutely mesmerizing.Based on manga writer/artist Anno Moyoco's "joyosei" (young woman's) comic series "Sakuran", the story tells of a young girl sold to a brothel in the red-light district of Yoshiwara by her indifferent mother (during the late Edo period) and her struggles to adapt to life as a Oiran (courtesan).The rebellious girl is put under the care of a beautiful Oiran, Shohi (Kanno Miho). The girl is given the name Tomeki and is trained by Shohi in the ways of becoming a great courtesan. She suffers much at the hands of her new "family" but in time becomes a "hikkomi" (prostitute).Her increasing popularity among the various Edo clientèle soon overshadows that of the current favorite Takao (Kimura Yoshino) much to her jealous disdain. Now given the more glamorous name Kiyoha, the young courtesan (Anna Tsuchiya) struggles with life as a Oiran while trying to find true love in a fake world. Eventually she achieves her goal of becoming a Yoshiwara star and assumes the new name of Higurashi but even this long sought after goal seems unsatisfying and she longs to find her own happiness.While comparisons to Rob Marshall's 2005 "Memoirs of A Geisha" are inevitable (Geisha are not Oiran and vice versa) especially with regards to story, I think "Sakuran" is more stylistically similar to Sofia Coppola's 2006 "Marie Antoinette". Like "Marie Antoinette", "Sakuran" is set in the past but rather than present it in a dull, drab, dated fashion, Ninagawa takes the opposite approach and presents the Edo period as a glorious spectacle of color and flamboyance. The modern rock music soundtrack, use of modern Japanese and focus on spectacular fashion also add to the similarities. This is not a historical documentation but an artistic interpretation of life at the time not unlike movies like "Samurai Fiction".Where "Memoirs of a Geisha" played more like a flawed theatrical fairy tale seen through the eyes of foreigners ("Gilbert and Sullivan's "The Mikado" comes to mind) "Sakuran" seems like a sensual and romantic Japanese manga come to life.Photographer turned director Ninagawa's eye for detail and skills in photography are put to great effect in "Sakuran" and it really shows on screen. The world of "Sakuran" seem almost too beautiful to be real. Cinematographer Ishizaka Takuro should also be credited with the amazing camera work.With fabulous production designs by Iwashiro Namiko and breath taking costumes and makeup by Iga Daisuke and Sugiyama Yuko "Sakura" is a good looking film.The screenplay by Tanada Yuki and Anno Moyoco tries its best to adapt the long manga story to film and does so admirably. Like her equally talented husband, Anno Hideaki (Evangelion, Cutie Honey Movie), Moyoco's flair for visuals do tend to overshadow the story a bit. I would have loved to see more of the mundane everyday lives of the Oiran as well as Kiyoha/Higurashi's struggles at trying to be accepted.Rock idol/model Anna Tsuchiya is an unconventional beauty (she reminds me a lot of Christina Ricci) and is definitely very good here. While her rebel role is not all too dissimilar from her previous role in fan favorite "Shimotsuma Monogatari" (AKA Kamakazi Girls), "Sakuran" does give her more of an opportunity to display her very natural and playful acting style. I hope that she is given more roles in the future that showoff more of her acting talents as indeed it is a waste to have her type-casted in the same type of "Jajauma" character.The modern soundtrack by Shiina Ringo (which mixed jazz, rock, pop and even cabaret) was also very good and surprisingly didn't really seem that much out of place amid the Edo era Yoshikawa setting."Sakuran" is definitely a surprising delight and a very good debut for Ninagawa who is certainly poised to become another shining star in the Japanese cinema world.