Memoirs of a Geisha/Awesome

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


  • At the party where Sayuri, the heroine, makes her debut as a geisha, she has an encounter with the Alpha Bitch, Hatsumomo:

Hatsumomo: "Sayuri"... a name as sweet as she is. I'm afraid these days even a common chambermaid can call herself a geisha. So it's nice to see such a sincere young maiko, isn't it?
General: Why yes!
Mameha: Surely you would like to thank Hatsumomo for her gracious compliments?
Sayuri: There is so much I would like to say to Hatsumomo.
Hatsumomo: Sometimes the smartest remark is silence.
Sayuri: What better advice to follow than your own?
Mameha: Sayuri...
Hatsumomo: Ah, a maiko. I was one myself, once.
Sayuri: Of course... but it's been such a very long, long, long, long time.

  • Sayuri's dance shoes. Standing in them without falling on her face would be hard enough, but she DANCES in them.
  • There's a scene with the Mameha (Michelle Yeoh) teaching the protagonist, Sayuri (Zhang Zhiyi) that a true geisha can stop a man with her eyes. She demonstrates and then asks Sayuri to do so, which Sayuri does to a passer by riding a bicycle, causing him to crash.