Feminism in the film

I recently realized that we can see feminism type of films more in Asian films. I know a lot of Korean films which shows us strong women. I felt those are very women centered film which used to be rare a decade ago. Today, however, I would like to introduce two of the Japanese cultural films which show us strong woman. I thought this film is interesting because we can see feminism and male gaze in one film.

The name of the film is "Sakuran". Basically, this is a story about Japanese Geisha. If you are not familiar with Geisha, I would say Geisha is Japanese proffesional entertainers trained in traditional dancing and music. They usually wear Japanese traditional clothes, Kimono. Even though this is a story of Japanese culture long time ago, we could still see strong women in this film.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CRH_GYnx9IQ

This film also shows us Laura Mulvey's theory "Male gaze". Women are totally object of desire and many scenes are seen from men's perspective. Those beautiful outfits and makeup, and some erotic scenes. It is interesting because this film has gender message like women have power. Moreover, we could see the Male Gaze at the same time.

There are one more film which is similar with this film. It is called "Sayuri". This film also shows us Geisha culture. Therefore, you would see a lot of strong women characters in this film, too. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oWDdI9rFgWM

Sayuri is very interesting, too because this film basically shows Japanese Geisha culture, but the directer is an American who is from Madison, Wisconsin. It would be from different perspective compared to Sakuran since Sakuran has Japanese directer and Sayuri has American directer. But I am sure you will enjoy watching the strong women and Male Gaze in both films.