Asian

MOVIE REVIEW . Sakuran

Sakuran starts off strong, bombarding the senses with bravado in all beats: clashing costume colors, punky tunes, and a tough chick lead. Gorgeous crane shots of goldfish harems and cherry blossom petal swarms act as the liberal cayenne in this bright bright bright world. But this is not our world, this is the feel of the Oiran’s realm, pure prostitution, in the raunchier shogunate-ruled days preceding the modest and artistic cloak of the Geisha. The Oiran demanded respect in a different sense, all glitzed out she participated in an annual promenade in order to attract wealthy clients who obviously didn’t mind sloppy seconds.

Just like the Oiran fizzled out, so did Sakuran. Oh, it tried to pry you out of the draggy dregs with montages too quick to make an impact; more like commercial intermissions rife with jagged jarring guitar rock. The jumpiness felt like a poorly edited episodic thriller, buzzing the audience awake at certain points, but it the jolts lacked juice. I know Sakuran was attempting extremes: juxtaposing subtle moments of glorious gloom (Kiyoha’s hardening after her first love lost) with shock and arterial spray, but it became a spiritless disjointed glamour portfolio. At the end it scrambled to complete a cookie-cutter type storyline out of crumbs (with a weird last-minute waiting-in-the-wings love interest who apparently, oddly, did not age like the rest of the cast), but Sakuran would have greatly benefited if it continued in the brash, ballsy manner it began with. So what if it made us dizzy, at least we’d still be awake.

“Oiran” in kanji consists of two characters meaning “flower” and “leader” and it’s that prettified pride-bent mindset that gets fiesty Kiyoha into much trouble. Anna Tsuchiya (a sandpaper-throated RussoAmerican/Japanese actress with Christina Ricci-like quirky scowls/head bobs and saucer-sized bedroom-eyed snobbery) is Kiyoha in her late teens, rising through the ranks as little miss “rebel without a clue”; her only goals in life are to disprove everyone she meets and to leave the brothel when the cherry tree at the local shrine blooms. The cherry tree is just as obstinate as she is, refusing to blossom, refusing Kiyoha’s freedom. Ironically, the Oiran’s promenade traditionally coincides with the April cherry blossoms, so it’s a bittersweet petal-less parade as Kiyoha takes her first swirly steps in those gigantic 8″ platform geta. The one thing that kept me watching was that tree; all for naught. The tree and the plentiful goldfish seemed to hold a higher meaning, perhaps all that overseen captive decadent beauty belied a parallel to the courtesans’ life, and thus Kiyoha’s. I mean, they kept saying her name sounded like a plant anyway.

Overall, I’ve seen better I’ve seen worse, but I’m sure I’ve seen a whole lot better;/em>, yet I’m confident they had enough awesome footage to achieve original trippy, hyper, badass-icity if they left the icky arrogant Sofia trend far behind. Besides, Sakuran’s cast/crew alone (with its female lead, female director, female screenwriter, based on a manga written by a woman) just screams grrrrlpower (and by golly I hate that word). Oh and Sakuran will make you fall in love with Anna Tsuchiya! Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go listen to that awesome theme song that’s in the beginning of the trailer and wonder if Chris and I will have hapa kids as cute as Anna.

About the Author

Kris Kobayashi-Nelson says these directors/screenwriters rarely disappoint: Peter Greenaway, Kiyoshi Kurosawa, Krzysztof Kieslowski, Gus van Sant. Gregg Araki. Kris claims that Jake Gyllenhaal, Cillian Murphy, Desmond Harrington and Casey Affleck are much more than pretty faces.