Memoirs Of Geisha, which woman loves... Options

Most of my girl friends love this movie and I'm not really sure why. They've watched the movie and then go ahead to read the novel.

To me, the movie was OK, but find it odd since what supposed to be a japanese character is played by an obviously chinese actresses. Zang Zi Yi (Mainland China) and Michele Yeoh (Malaysia) both are great dedicated actresses, but I've been closely associated them with Hong Kong movies.

For a Jap movie, I'd much prefer "Last Samurai" or "Zatoichi" with all the zests, actions and bravados... hehe typical guy movie aye!

For you psych major, why do you think woman loves this movie?
How do they personally relate to the story? something related to the cinderella syndrome?
Most importantly, what do you think we can learn about woman from here?

I bought the book a while ago and red it. I haven't seen the movie yet. I don't really think a lot of the females you speak of can truely relate to the characters in this book/movie. The Basic Idea I got from the book was that poor little chiyo had to go through things in her life time that in all honsety if most people had to go through there spirit would be broken and they would just give up on life all together. However one act of kindness she recieved as a child enduring so much suffering and sorrows gave her hopes and dreams that eased her suffering just enough for her to not give up. Try to honestly see it from the emotional point. The girl was about 8 I think it was when her mother was dying and her father was old and close to death himself. A man in a village down the road who seemed like a nice man who she thought was going to rescue her nearly convinced her father to sell her and her sister. She was sent to work as a maid and later become a Geisha while her sister was sent to a whore house and forced to have sex with multipul males and lose her childhood and pay for it like it was something she should be glad was happening. Chiyo was beaten, starved, over worked and had a horrible woman who was a drunk and arrogant who kept trying to get her beat on and casted out because she was scared that if Chiyo became a sucessful Geisha that she would be in a bad situation and could no longer run things. Seriously it is a deep book. You should read it just because it makes you realise that even though Japan looks so beautiful and the Geisha seem so elegant and beautiful that they never really choose to be Geisha, and they got treated really badly. There where basically like slaves until they made enough money to buy themselves out of it.