EAST IS EAST AND THAT'S ABOUT IT, SAYS STEVEN SPIELBERG

Spielberg is backing the 'blockbuster' Memoirs of a Geisha, and much in the way the book was a stereotypically Western take on the Geisha world (the result deeply offended the subject Geisha, to whom interviewer Golden had made certain promises he allegedly did not honor, for which she is presently sueing him), the movie version, amazingly, will have as the leads two Chinese actresses! Now why would that be, I wonder. Are there no Japanese actresses capable of playing geisha? (So much for Spielberg as a stickler for 'authenticity.') Or is Hollywood aiming to continue that tradition of genuinely inauthentic oriental flavor in exchange for money, most recently exhibited in Lost in Translation? And so far, to my ear, not a peep in Japan about this extreme thespian insult!

Zhang Ziyi in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Geisha

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