To say that folks in Mainland China took offense to Chinese actresses Zhang Ziyi and Gong Li playing Japanese geishas in Rob Marshall's critically panned Memoirs of a Geisha (Michelle Yeoh has Malaysian roots and thus has escaped most of the press' wrath) is a bit of an understatement. China, after all, was occupied by the Japanese during WWII and those memories run deep. Zhang, in particular, has been raked over the coals and now the film has been blocked from playing on the mainland indefinitely with Zhang's appearance deemed a "shame to the country". Many thanks to Jason Gray for translating the following Japanese news article:
HONG KONG - It was reported in the Monday January 23rd editions of several Hong Kong newspapers that the February 10th Mainland China release of the Hollywood film SAYURI (director: Rob Marshall) would be postponed. The casting of Chinese actress Zhang Ziyi in the lead role of a geisha is said to be causing recollections of women forced into prostitution by the Japanese army during WWII, as well as fueling concerns over growing anti-Japanese sentiment. SAYURI, executive produced by Steven Spielberg, also features top Chinese actress Gong Li as a geisha.
Criticisms that Zhang's portrayal of a geisha was a "shame to the country" have been surfacing on Chinese internet sites since last year. According to reports, the February 10th release was scheduled to go ahead as planned, until the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television (SARFT) deemed it "a sensitive issue," after which the film's release was cancelled. The chances of a possible release at a later date are currently being deliberated, but are said to be unlikely.
Original article found in the Mainichi Shimbun ">
You know... I like Gong Li, but why is all the negative going to Zhang Zi Yi and not more evenly distributed? Seeing how Zi Yi isn't as liked in China, than other parts of the world (although she does a lot of advertisement there), maybe she's given all the criticism because people don't think she deserves her star status...?
This could have been avoided if they had cast Japanese actresses in the roles instead of going with the most popular Asian women in Hollywood and making them speak with hokey accents.
jasong, here in Tokyo the film bombed. They tried to promote the film with lots of posters and commercials (I swear every movie in every theater played the trailer for this a month before release), but to no avail. Helps that every paper in the city ran at least one article about how insulting the film was. Most articles claimed that the film was an exercise in western orientialism with little regard for Japanese culture. The lack of Japanese actresses was always mentioned, but the overall point was that the entire film was fouled (of course none of the papers had seen the film, but...). Most of my friends here thought that the actresses were not a terrible choice, but that the movie seemed to be rather ridiculous.
The film was released here as "Saiyuri". Memoirs of a Geisha would sound like the cheesiest 70s pink film title in Japanese. I'm just glad they took down all those damn posters finally. As of note, none of the posters showed Zhang with her eyes open. Her blue eyes have been guffawed more than the nationality of the actress as far as I've seen. Zhang is really well liked here, even though her films are only so-so recieved--normal for chinese and HK films.
I know, I live in Tokyo. The article's dateline was HK, and written by Mainichi correspondent Narusawa Ken'ichi (which I should've mentioned).
There's a considerable segement of the Japanese movie-going public that are interested in foreign depictions of their culture (no matter how out of whack they are), but it wasn't enough to save SAYURI from unimpressive box-office numbers.