The Japanese photographer-turned-director Mika Ninagawa brings an iconoclastic manga sensibility to this story of a tragic courtesan called Kiyoha, played by Anna Tsuchiya. In firm opposition to the high style of Kenji Mizoguchi or Mikio Naruse, Ninagawa is much more provocative, insisting on the geisha's identity as prostitute above all else, sweeping aside the usual emphasis on the geisha's traditional picturesque accomplishments, pointing up instead her heroine's unmatched sexual technique. With its flashy style, sugar-candy colour schemes and outrageous inventions like the "breast" montage at the film's opening, Ninagawa's movie has a punk bravura. As the story progresses, it settles into something more traditionally sorrowful, but not before it has delivered a blast of energy.