"Maiko Haaaaan!!!" is the sort of film that I should've enjoyed. I'm a confirmed Japanophile, I visit it at least once a year, I love Kyoto's Gion district (well, the north Gion; the south is too touristy for my taste), and I always love seeing (or hearing) geiko and maiko, the two subsets of geisha in Kyoto. Also, I thoroughly enjoy "Shimotsuma Monogatari" ("Kamikaze Girls"), a movie that is structurally very similar to "Maiko Haaaaan!!!", and even shares some actors. So why did I give "Maiko Haaaaan!!!" just 3 stars and why do I call it "nearly unwatchable"?
There are two main reasons. First, the performance by Abe Sadao is one of the most annoying things I've ever witnessed on the screen. Imagine Jerry Lewis at his most irritating. Imagine Moe Howard from the Three Stooges. Add their over-the-top scenery-chewing, mugging, shrieking and contorting together, and -- there! You've grasped Abe Sadao's character. He was mildly interesting in "Shimotsuma Monogatari", but mostly because he retained an air of mystery (and his outlandish appearance was nevertheless underplayed). Not so here. He's turned up to eleven, and he's not coming back down anytime soon.
And the other reason? The script is an utter mess. It starts out as a broad comedy farce, breaks the fourth wall and becomes a musical, transforms into a tragicomedy, goes out for fast food, comes back for a while, goes into therapy, and finally ends as a maudlin "romantic comedy", while doing none of those things well. The tear-jerking elements just come off as sappy and unbelievable, and the "McGuffin" is simply incapable of making us care. And at more than two hours long, watching "Maiko Haaaaan!!!" is a bit like getting your toenails slowly pulled off. You know it will be better when it's over with, but there's still no end in sight.
If you like colorful, fast-paced, slightly screwball Japanese comedies, there are some great ones out there, from "Shimotsuma Monogatari" to to "Samehada Otoko to Mojiri Onna" ("Shark Skin Man and Peach Hip Girl"). They're well-scripted, breezy and never get too broad. If "Maiko Haaaaan!!!" had been likewise crafted, it might have been a second-string to those two classics of their genre. Instead, it plays like "Jerry Lewis in 'Hay Priddy Japanese LAAAAAy-DEEEEE!'"
