Movie “Geisha Assassin”

 Movie “Geisha Assassin” (2008) directed by Go Ohara.

This movie has a promising beginning. Classical oriental music and a woman dressed in traditional attire performing a dance, in a setting that could be said to have good cinematography. Apparently, fans are a kind of symbol for many things. According to these two websites, sobre-japon.com/2010/09/07/los-abanicos-japoneses/ and www.absolutjapon.com/abanicos-un-verdadero-simbolo-de-la-cultura-egipcia/, we can read that they are important in Japan. The first website says, "...fans in Japan have been a bit of everything: a symbol of friendship, of respect, a dance instrument, weapons, signal flags, and even toys." And the second website says, "in Japan they are also an important element of their culture, which has accompanied the inhabitants of the Asian country for thousands of years." Then the sound of water and the striking of a bamboo water feature interrupt. And that's the end of the interesting part; what follows is a movie that lacks a cohesive thread, has no script, not even a vocabulary, short phrases, and senseless fights, where various kinds of "warriors"—to put it one way—begin to appear and challenge the martial arts expert actress, and so we hear lines like "I must kill you" spoken by someone perched on a tree branch, or a kind of flying ninjas who, of course, do a thousand stunts for nothing because they don't cause even a scratch on this film's lead. Everything is very predictable. And if up to this point her short phrases had been careful in choosing words, they are no longer cared for, and by the fifteen-minute mark the first insult appears; who knows, perhaps for some people it's boring for sword clashes to lack cursing. Once past this hurdle, the geisha undergoes such a transformation that she goes from being a geisha to a living kind of Japanese anime character. How did that happen? We may never know, but the new geisha, or the transformed geisha we now see, wears short sleeves with her arms bare and a delicate cut in the fabric—we don't know if it was the result of previous fights or if she stopped by a tailor—along with a new hairstyle featuring a side sweep with visible ends, bangs, and a ponytail or topknot that leaves a lock of hair loose. Not only that, but shots begin to appear that reveal her face, close-ups where her face is clearly visible, now free of makeup! Where did it go? Where did she wash it off? It is amazing to see how she doesn't have the slightest trace of all that makeup she had on (white, red, pink, black, etc.), yet traces of injuries and what looks like blood are visible. In other words, we can suppose she deeply washed off her makeup but didn't bother to clean her injuries. At this point, whatever comes next won't be surprising: that is, the clothing that had bloodstains is now as spotless as when she began her walk, just as the terrible slash she had on one of her cheeks completely disappears. This is a good time to stop watching this movie because of how bad it is, but since it isn't very long—and thank goodness they didn't think of making it longer than it is, not even reaching an hour and twenty minutes—I keep watching, and it stays the same: fights where the bad guys always lose and the geisha wins, until the ending finally arrives. And when you expect a grand finale with some sort of surprise, no, it remains the same, completely predictable. Best of all, I think, are just the last two seconds. Yes, that's right—aside from what I mentioned earlier up to the bamboo strike—the last two seconds when the actress looks at the camera and smiles. I don't know at what, perhaps as a way to save face from what the movie is. I didn't like it, but maybe it's aimed at a young audience, kids who like adventures, martial arts, fights, cartoons, fantasy, and the combination of all that thrown together half-heartedly to make a movie. Even a young audience deserves a better film.