From the film's description: The Geisha ladies of Japanese culture have long been revered for their beauty and entertaining skills of singing, dancing and conversation. Some are known to possess special love-making abilities that can drive men crazy. Crystal J. Huang shoots a film based on the concept, while adding some “Kill Bill” notions and the concept of dancing in order to come up with a rather unusual film.
Dark Feathers: Dance of the Geisha review is part of the Submit Your Film Initiative
As the movie begins, we are introduced to Kate, an Asian-Japanese woman, who meets her boyfriend on a terrace, just before he commits suicide. It turns out though, that this is not the first of her romantic interests to do so, with the photographer and ballroom dancer Kate starting to gain a femme fatale hypostasis, which soon ticks detective Remy Gilles interest. Remy is actually married to Kate's dance instructor, Amelia, and soon finds himself between the two women, to the enragement of his wife. In the meantime, and through flashbacks, Kate's rather complicated past is revealed.
Allow me to start with the negative, which are not exactly few nor insignificant. For starters, the TV soap opera approach to the story, dialogues, and production values will probably have the viewer questioning if this is a parody of sorts, essentially from the get go. The flashback to the training scenes cements this notion, with the nut cracking scene in particular being definitely one to remember. Furthermore, the story and the characters' actions do not make fully sense, while the soapy elements become more and more intense as the film progresses.
The production values are obviously also suffering due to the lack of budget, with a number of settings obviously being somewhere in the US with a few oriental decorations to appear Asian. The dancing aspects seem disconnected, as does the concept of photography, while the appearance and function of the secondary characters does not make much sense either. Lastly, the winks at Tarantino, actually including Michael Madsen who played Budd in “Kill Bill” will probably make one laugh more than anything else.
So, what does the film have working for it? A number of things actually. For starters, the two main leads, Crystal J. Huang as Kate and Karina Smirnoff as Amelia are quite sexy, both in the way they look and the way they act, something that definitely works for the economy of the film, adding a very appealing element of sensualism. That the movie moves into lesbian territory after a point adds to this path, and the overall entertainment the whole thing offers. At the same time, that their relationship first becomes antagonistic and then something completely different works nicely too, particularly since both of them seem to exhibit a sort of pettiness. Lastly, in that line, the concept of women having all the power, as it is presented through both the protagonist and a number of other characters, raises a feministic perspective that is also rather appealing to watch.
One more point of appeal here are definitely the choreographies, which are as intricate and realistic as they are impressive, with the amount of detail highlighted being of utmost level. Furthermore, if one does not take the movie so seriously, and perceive it through a ‘so-bad-it's-good” perspective, there is actually quite a lot of fun to be had here, as the whole thing moves into cult territory.
As such, whether someone enjoys “Dark Feathers: Dance of the Geisha” exclusively depends on the knack for enjoying this type of films, essentially low budget Tarantino-style ones. Those, however, will definitely have a lot of fun with this.
