"Memoirs of a Geisha" was available on Netflix so I watched it, but couldn't last till the end. I started it of course because I am interested in all cultures and respect all. But at the end, I just can't brush off the thoughts such as I feel like myself a Jew watching movies about how Hitler was a great vegetarian and painter and extremely disciplined in life...
I mean of course, I don't mind who made the movie and why all Chinese women are leading actresses, and I am not on the side of the Chinese officials to ban the movie in China and using it for propaganda purposes and to arouse Extreme Nationalism. And I know, it's about an ordinary woman's life in special times under special circumstances and any struggling of life is respectable. But ya, I just can't stand it, to be completely honest.
Why? You should know some more historical background to understand my position: Wikipedia -"The film's setting of the 1920s and 1940s covers both World War II and the Second Sino-Japanese War, during which a time Japan captured and forced thousands of Korean and Chinese women into sexual slavery known as 'comfort women' for Japanese military personnel. A different controversy rose with the mentioning of a Japanese soldier that had fought in Manchuria, China, as the geisha introducing the soldier referred to him as a 'war hero' in the film."
As a Chinese woman, I just couldn't put aside the facts about thousands of Chinese "comfort women" as sex slaves and each of whom was raped hundreds of times a day by hundreds of soldiers and killed as easily as rats and cockroaches (rats and cockroaches were how Japanese militants defined Chinese and other Asians) by the Japanese war criminals in the exact same time and as the general historical background of the story.
The movie is about women's life right? I know back then Japanese militants didn't consider Chinese as human beings, but ya, we are in the 21st century now. If there was a movie even just remotely relating to World War II, it would be about how brutal and wrong were the Nazis toward Jews, with no other options. But for Japanese war criminals, because they killed only Asian yellowmen who were non-whites, the world is much more tolerant toward them....
Not only about the sex slaves during the wars, the millions of lives that were lost, families broken, and a lost nation that was thrown into turmoil after turmoil after the brutal wars and evasions, this all made it very difficult for me to watch any movie which is about that period of time but took a very positive view toward the Japanese.
I don't like to see any war criminals glorified in any sense, period.
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