Has anyone seen this yet? I've read mixed reviews so I'm undecided about going or waiting to rent the dvd.

YES A BACKWARDS THREAD!!!!!

i have only seen it's trailer, it looks really nice and unique. .

A Powerful, Compelling Suffered Love

This sumptuous, gorgeous dramatic love story is one of the most potent ethnic love stories for Americans in many, many years. The entire movie is focused on forbidden love and the bearing the burden of such love in typical Japanese style. The performances are strong, the bitter emotional conflicts, the traditions, the elegance of the Geisha are well portrayed. In the best ethnic, soap operatic style of Japanese drama possible, this movie exposes the layers of stereotypical deprecation of a demanding and richly traditioned human art form - a girl as a living work of art and the suffering and sacrifice that attends to such a life. Unlike Dr. Zhivago, the epic Russian Revolutionary love story, Geisha spends all of its time on the people, and Suyuri in particular with the politics of men, of war only as historical canvas or backdrop. Instead the audience is witness to the intimate living experience and burden born by the mysterious Geisha and brings honor and human distinction to this noble but perhaps sexist and maybe dehumanizing traditional role in Japanese society.

My wife does not want to see this movie even though she is Japanese American. I don't think whether or not to go will be decided on what people think because there isn't a consensus on this one. It sounds like a gorgeous looking film with little substance. Some in the Japanese community are upset because of the use of Chinese actors which I assume implies that authentically speaking there will more discrepancies than usual. For my part I'm interested in going because of the subject matter, it looks go, and as Mark f has pointed out with my predilection for stubborn insistence of prejudging movies like King Kong (2005), I suspect that this is one of those movie that if you expect you will like it you will and if you aren't sure, you are more likely not to like it - for what it's worth.