Gong Li plays Hatsumomo in the film, a geisha and the main antagonist throughout. The casting of three non-Japanese actresses to play Japanese characters was controversial at the time, which ...

WHEN Chinese actress Gong Li makes her American film debut in “Memoirs of a Geisha” this Friday, it’ll be in a role some see as deliciously close to real life. Not that she’s a treacherous ...

Gong Li established herself as one of the biggest international stars to come out of China in the early 1990s, starring in the Oscar-nominated films “Ju Dou,” “Raise the Red Lantern” and ...

Ziyi Zhang, left, and Gong Li clash in "Memoirsof a Geisha," adapted from the best-selling novel.

Sex, tradition and exoticism are choreographed into a dance of strategy and desire, starring the great beauties Ziyi Zhang, Gong Li and Michelle Yeoh.

There, she meets top geisha Hatsumomo (Gong Li), a duplicitous schemer who, perhaps sensing that the girl will grow up to become a threat to her status, takes an instant disliking to her, devising ...

Her “Crouching” co-star, Michelle Yeoh, plays the kindly geisha Mameha. And Gong Li plays Sayuri’s cruel nemesis Hatsumomo.

Ruling the roost at the cramped compound is Hatsumomo (Gong Li). Exceptionally beautiful, she is also arrogant and tempestuous — a diva among geisha, who gives Chiyo a hard time from the outset.

Memoirs of a Geisha 2005, PG-13, 145 min. Directed by Rob Marshall. Starring Ziyi Zhang, Michelle Yeoh, Gong Li, Ken Watanabe, Kôji Yakusho, Youki Kudoh, Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa.

Gong Li established herself as one of the biggest international stars to come out of China in the early 1990s, starring in the Oscar-nominated films “Ju Dou,” “Raise the Red Lantern” and ...