if their story seems completely bonkers, almost like a feverish work of fiction, you ain't heard nothing yet.

The movie's not perfect, but it sticks the landing of its message. It was engaging - thrilling at times - and I personally thought it was a great time.

It’s sentimental, ridiculously long and only occasionally funny

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

Sure is colorful. There's a lot to write about when discussing this film but very little of it has to do with the story: In eighteenth-century Japan, a young girl is sold to a brothel by her mother; she's rebellious and tries to escape all the time; she's more talented and beautiful than all the other girls (suspension of disbelief required); she becomes an oiran (in the hierarchy of prostitutes, sort of like a four-star general in the army).It's not that the story is bad or unimportant, it's that everything else about the film screams "Look at me! Look at me!" The sets and costuming, the soundtrack, and the casting of a mixed-race Polish/Japanese version of Courtney Love in the lead role all go against type. And one cannot help but notice that this is not Memoirs of a Geisha. Insight from the nearly sixty second montage of naked female breasts near the beginning of the film might be missed if one doesn't notice that the director Mika Ninagawa, the art director Namiko Iwashiro, the music director Ringo Shiina, the producer Chikako Nakabayashi, the scriptwriter Yuki Tanada, and the artist of the original manga Moyoco Anno are all women.The film is beautiful to look at, if a little over-indulgent at times. No attempt is made to be true to the period. I don't speak Japanese, and subtitles are always deficient in nuance, but I'm sure the dialog is straight off the streets of contemporary Tokyo and not in any Edo period parlance. The mannerisms and delivery, and even the subtitles suggest this, and it's one of the things about the film I'm undecided about. I'm not generally a fan of costume dramas or period pieces so on the one hand I was interested in seeing this modernized production, but on the other hand I felt a sense of incongruity while watching it. The bold colors of the sets and costumes didn't bother me but the soundtrack is a little odd. Not so much in the style—which swims through many modern genres of pop, rock, and jazz—as in the reverb. The music often doesn't sound like it is in the same size room as the action that is taking place. I like Ringo Shiina's music, have a few of her solo CDs and those of Tokyo Jihen, the band she also plays in. It's not that I think the music is bad, or that it is too terribly out of place. I think the sound design could have been better, and I think that some of the folks who find the soundtrack a little jarring would be less put off by it if more attention had been paid to the overall sound design.Finally, I was not won over by Anna Tsuchiya in the lead role. I'm sure casting her was a well-thought out conscious decision by the director and I also, in theory, think she fits the package the director was trying to deliver. It's not that she doesn't look 'traditionally' Japanese, whatever that is. And it's not that she lacks a certain elegance I've come to expect of these types of characters, although I'm not surprised by the omission of her doing any of the arty things these pre-geisha geisha types were supposed to be fluent in like music, poetry, dancing, or witty conversation. It might be that she just isn't a very good actress. These rock star cum actress types often possess great charisma that passes itself off as good acting in the right context. I'm not sure this is one of them. I hope I haven't spoiled it for potential viewers by bringing up Courtney Love, but that's what it felt like to me, a little vulgar and somewhere between disappointing and distracting. Tsuchiya is a lot more attractive in her own musical environment than she is in this film. I just didn't buy her as a sophisticated beauty who rises to the top. Maybe I'm just upset that Yoshino Kimura is given short-shrift in the fake eyelash department or that the truly beautiful and engaging Miho Kanno is dispatched with too early in the film.

I just realized why the colors and sets in "Sakuran" were so flashy and gaudy, and just painful to look at. The story is about a high-class prostitute known as an oiran in Japanese. Their kimono were always flashier and gaudier than other kimono so that the oiran would stand out. But the director, Mika Ninagawa, had to make sure that the director stood out even more than the main character, or even the story. What Anna Tsuchiya did in the movie just gave me the creeps. You couldn't call it acting. It was nothing more than catering to her flipped-out, high-school-girl fan base. Hey Anna, good luck on that one as you get older. Yeah, right, an oiran as a crude and vulgar, prone- to-violence, biker chick. Didn't we already see you portray this character in a more appropriate movie?The story was painfully boring and predictable. What is the story of "Sakuran"? An obnoxious little bitch ever remains true to her self which is just that: an obnoxious bitch. She finds that, inexplicably, men are attracted to her and that she has an unexplained ability to manipulate men and becomes a successful, high-class prostitute even though she talks and behaves like she's a member of a female biker gang. This so-called seductive ability of hers is talked about but we never see it in action, probably due to the ineptitude of the main, pretend-phony-biker chick, I mean "actress." The main character of the movie makes a wealthy and powerful man angry at her because she keeps him waiting while she services a much more lowly customer. Not very oiran-like, is it? How could such a woman ever become an oiran? Oh, because the previous oiran got herself killed and the house needed a whore that could demand a high price. Who would pay a high price for a slut so cheap? Rumors get around. How could there be no repercussions for what she did to the powerful guy? Because the screenwriters are dolts. They just made up a bunch of crap.Then an even more wealthy and powerful guy falls for her (why?) and she throws him over for a penniless guy who is generally cold and distant toward her but respects who she really is (which doesn't make sense. How can anyone respect someone so worthless?).Speaking of crap, it's like the director squatted down and took a huge, psychedelic-colored dump on the aesthetics, culture, and society of the Edo Period. What of such things as sabi, mono no aware, wabi, subtlety, elegance, a rigidly hierarchical society? All shat upon by a director who comes off as a senseless, nouveau-riche parvenu. The amazing thing is that so many other Japanese, in watching this movie, squatted down around the director and took steaming spoonfuls of this blazing-colored stinking crap and exclaimed how tasty it was.Argentinean tango music with violin and bandoneon as backdrop for the Edo Period when Japan was totally isolated from the international world (except for the 3.7 acres of Dejima)? Why not just have Anna, the bad-ass-biker oiran, answer her cell phone and the rich and powerful daimyo character drive off in a hissy fit in his red Ferrari? The music we had to listen to was jarring and anachronistic (the same as the art design). Near the ending, I liked that there were only two or three tiny flowers on the shrine cherry tree. But, earlier, the second she said she would leave the quarters when it bloomed, we all knew exactly what would happen. How boring, to telegraph the ending so clearly. But what's the point of the old tree blooming? That rich and powerful guy already made the pleasure quarters bloom in cherry blossoms like the mountains of Yoshino in spring. That didn't impress her at all? No, of course not. I already know that about whores. The guys that treat them nicely get kicked in the balls. Maybe it bugs the whores to have people idealize them when they themselves know the truth of who they are: just cheap and worthless.Considering the director's obsession with goldfish, the second to last scene should have been of a goldfish bowl on a verandah accidentally knocked over. Two fish tumble into a stream which carries them off to escape beyond the walls of the pleasure quarters, belying how goldfish are stuck in their bowl and can't survive outside (just like the denizen's relationship with the pleasure quarters). Otherwise the talk of the fate of goldfish has no meaning.In the final scene the cherry trees were full in bloom, but the brevity of the blooms is one thing special about cherry blossoms. I couldn't help thinking that soon enough dusk would wipe away all the soft pink color and warmth from the scene. The sky would go quickly from hints of shadow, into an ever- deepening gloom, and night would fall. It would become cold, very cold. And dark. That really wasn't a happy ending, was it? Romantic love (in the Edo Period?) could survive in the face of terrible poverty and being ostracized for about as long as those cherry trees bloomed. Maybe a few days, unless it rained sooner. But the unconsummated romantic love we see here? It's existence in this period is incomprehensible.Anna Tsuchiya walking in the shoes of an oiran? She couldn't do it. Literally. Check out the scene of her "promenade" where she seems to have the correct footwear on but she has to hold on to some guy's shoulder to keep from tumbling on her ass.I was going to give this movie two stars for the art direction but then I realized what that was all about: sick dominance on the part of the director. Those colors and sets are just the way the director has of screaming, "I'm the most important one here! Me! It's all about me!!!!"

Sakuran, though different on some levels from Memoirs of A Geisha, shares the same, maybe better, artistic visual. This movie tells the story of an oiran (prostitutes, different from geisha) named Kiyoha (later Higurashi) played by Tsuchiya Anne.Much more realistic than Memoirs of A Geisha, Sakuran has a simple plot circling in Kiyoha's raise from a hikkomi (oiran-apprentice) to the highest ranking oiran in Tamakuki House. A numbers of men introduces her with love, heartbreak, hope and freedom. The beautiful Kiyoha meets first love Sojiro (Narimiya Hiroki), wealthy samurai Kuranosuke (Shiina Kippei) and a kind brothel clerk Seiji (Ando Masanobu). Like a goldfish in a tank, the outspoken Kiyoha longs for freedom.Sakuran presents beautiful vibrant colors from kimonos, interior decors and ornaments throughout the movie. Very energetic and accompanied with strong modern songs by Shiina Ringo, Sakuran is sure to please the eyes. Outside its beautiful visual, the storyline and plot is rather bland without the ability to stir the viewer's emotion. Tsuchiya Anne gives a pretty strong performance and fits her character well.

It's painfully clear that all effort in this film was directed toward cinematography and very little attention to everything else. Most obvious mistake is the miscast of the entire female cast. Many of them are very experienced and capable, but they all seemed out of place, and having an amateur director certainly didn't help. The story is a very common Geisha story, and characters behaved very inconsistently, thus making it extremely difficult for me to connect with the heroine. This movie's theme is "modern prostitution", but still, it was annoying how Tsuchiya Anna's lead character kept talking like a female motorcycle gang member while everyone else spoke in old Japanese fitting for this setting. This movie has very beautiful vibrant colors, similar to Zhang Yimou's "Hero", but viewers can easily tell it's filmed in a cheap, elaborate set. This is one of those jidaigeki made specifically for foreign audience: "Look at the colors, beautiful geisha, and exoticness!"The two sequences with Shiina Ringo's insert songs were really nice though, in mid-section of the movie. I actually really disliked her music before, but they fit perfectly in this movie. Although Ninagawa Mika is a complete failure as a film director, she has a major potential in PV (music video) production.I believe the story felt very plain because the director failed to focus on character development, and because Tsuchiya Anna's unconvincing acting as an Oiran. Had this film been directed by a known Jidaigeki director with any other known actress in Japan, it would've had the potential to become a masterpiece.