'Geisha' banned in China for fear of anti-Japanese reaction

By Andreas Landwehr Feb 1, 2006, 14:19 GMT

Beijing - In the debate over whether Hollywood overstepped some boundaries by using Chinese actresses to portray Japanese geishas, China made clear its position this week by banning Memoirs of a Geisha.

Anxious of anti-Japanese reaction to the movie, Chinese authorities barred it in a decision rooted in continuing historical tensions.

The Chinese newspaper Fazhi Wanbao confirmed this week that the national film board and the Office for the Administration of Radio, Film and Television had banned the movie because its story line was 'too sensitive.'

A large-scale promotional campaign was already under way in magazines for the scheduled February 19 release, but Shanghai Film Studios said last week that it had stopped all dubbing work on the film.

Given the sensitivity of the issue, the distributor, China Film Co, refused to comment: 'We have nothing to say.'

The movie has triggered strong emotions because it cast Zhang Ziyi, who leaped to worldwide stardom in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon; fellow Chinese actress Gong Li; and Michelle Yeoh, a Malaysian of Chinese origin, as Japanese geishas.

In Japan, critics objected to their culture being portrayed by people from other countries, but Memoirs of a Geisha has come under fire in China for other reasons, most stemming from Japan's occupation of China in the 1930s and '40s and the anti-Japanese feelings that linger from it.

For one, Chinese actresses are playing characters viewed in Chinese society as prostitutes. In addition, the mere thought of a Chinese woman submitting to a Japanese has aroused cries of a 'national disgrace.'

'When I saw Zhang Ziyi lying underneath that Japanese man, I was so embarrassed that I wanted to find a hole in the floor and hide in it,' one watcher said in a reaction that was widespread, according to other viewers cited in Chinese newspapers.

'A loss of face for all Chinese,' was another reaction to the movie, which, despite the ban, is already available in China in the form of pirated DVDs.

Chinese media also pointed out that Japan had forced thousands of Chinese women to serve as sex slaves to the Japanese military during World War II and that Japanese soldiers had raped and murdered tens of thousands of Chinese girls and women during their infamous 'Rape of Nanking' in 1937.

But the movie in only the latest sign of discord between the two nations. In early 2005, violent protests erupted in several Chinese cities against Japan, resulting in the most severe chilling of relations between the two countries in decades.

The Chinese protesters were incensed over Japan's perceived refusal to admit wartime atrocities.

Japan has also been criticized for trivializing its war crimes in the country's history textbooks, and Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi has provoked outrage with his annual visits to Tokyo's Yasukuni Shrine, which honours Japan's war dead, including a number of convicted war criminals.

Many wartime wounds remain unhealed, and with the casting of Chinese actresses as Japanese geishas, American director Rob Marshal showed 'cultural ignorance' from an Asian perspective.

'Hollywood, you have a problem with Asians,' the Asia edition of the International Herald Tribune noted.

Memoirs of a Geisha is the first Hollywood movie to exclusively star Asian actors, but critics said they were 'the wrong Asians.'

'In the eyes of Americans, all East Asian women obviously have yellow skin, black hair and dark eyes, suggesting that Japanese and Chinese women look alike,' a Chinese newspaper commented.

Hollywood wasn't concerned about culture but only about business, the newspaper charged. <!--page-->

To Asians, however, the physical differences between Japanese and Chinese people are obvious, and the ethnicity of Zhang; Li, who also starred in Farewell, my Concubine; and Yeoh, who played the first Asian 'Bond Girl' in Tomorrow Never Dies, is a hard thing to overlook.

Memoirs has also found its detractors in the Chinese film community.

Renowned director Chen Kaige argued that a Chinese woman cannot portray a Japanese geisha because a geisha is a traditional feature of Japanese culture.

Chinese actress Zhang Manyu, also known as Maggie Cheug was originally offered a part in the movie but turned it down.

'I didn't want to return home and deal with accusations that I had betrayed my culture,' she was quoted as saying by the Chinese newspaper Chongqing Shibao.