The beginning is one of the exceptions. When we see young girls sold, one to be forcibly trained to be a geisha, the other winding up in a brothel, the situation is heart rending, and director Rob Marshall captures the terror and inhumanity involved. Once the film moves into the world of geishas, their relationships with each other and with the men who prize a beautiful, classically-trained woman as worth keeping in style, the film is in some ways fascinating but rarely rises to a level that might make it special.

I once was introduced to a geisha in Tokyo for the purpose of writing an article about what was happening in post-war Japan. She was quite attractive, and she complained that the geisha concept isn’t what it once was, but had become a kind of “social security service” for old men. The comment struck me as funny at the time and made clear that geishas were not what they once were meant to be.

In “Memoirs of a Geisha” there is an effort to show the training and special status they were accorded, and the downside of the way they were exploited so that their entire lives revolved around what they were groomed for—pleasing rich men--even if against their will. The stakes are depicted as so high as to inspire intense competition within a given house and the yearning for true love.

The film’s best features are the actresses Ziyi Zhang and Gong Li. The beautiful Zhang plays Sayuri, while Gong Li portrays the older geisha who is jealous of her rival’s youth and is bent on destroying her. The two women are well worth watching; they add the requisite dynamics to the tale. The other cast members, male and female, act well and pepper the story with assorted character types.