These two movies did not really meet my expectations.
In Munich, Spielberg entered the controversial political foray with the adventure of Mossad agents taking revenge to what had happened in 1972 Olympic games. Due to its sensitive theme, I can imagine that in some countries (possibly also in my country, Indonesia), this Munich won’t be perhaps available in the cinema.
Despite the good performance of Eric Bana, the characters did not seem to be portrayed “live” enough, which is sad because that was supposed to be the heart of the movie. In fact, this did not feel like typical Spielberg’s movie at all.
And I also can’t really understand why Munich is chosen as the title, it feels like a cheap shot to that tragic event (same case for view of the New York’s twin towers in the final scene) as the whole thing is actually about Munich’s aftermath. Even Lucasian “The Agency Strikes Back” sounds better.
The visual in Memoirs of a Geisha is without doubt truly superb (and vivid). However, I did not really like the story adaptation. Sure, it can’t stick 100% to the book. But the book still reads like a memoirs while the movie feels like an expanded soap opera (you know, forbidden love thing). Some memorable and important moments are fast forwarded, while in other parts they are just long winded.
I don’t know about other places, but here Geisha is not really well received. In the second running week, the cinema hall is unbelievably almost empty because so few people watched it. Maybe wrong place, wrong time.
As for Zhang Ziyi (I still believe if she’s doing modelling only, she’d be the Chinese answer to Kate Moss), I like her better in Flying Dagger.
Hopefully they won’t make a follow-up “Returns of a Geisha”.