Kenji Mizoguchi's compassion for and fascination with the status of women in Japan is a factor that has greatly affected, in one way or another, the way his films are made.  His films are not feminine nor particularly feminist, but they are exhaustive in their portrayals of the class system and how the political and social climate in Japan objectified women.  The majority of the burdens fall to the females but their suffering often leads to the demise of men, poor and powerful alike, as the women at least have the power to destroy.  In A Geisha, Mizoguchi explores the typical path from naivity and disillusionment to bitterness and deceit that the geisha's inevitably followed.

The young protagonist, Eiko, played wonderfully by Ayako Wakao, is abandoned by her father and left with no alternative other than becoming a geisha.  After pleading with an old friend of her mothers, she is given the chance to prove her worth and is given the position.  It is important to note that the film takes place in post-War Japan, and Eiko's false notions about the newfound freedoms of geisha will lead to her ultimate demise in which she is forced to confront her reality, although it has become too late to do anything to change it.  She is watched over by Miyoharu who is, at first, the geisha with a heart of gold soon revealing herself to be as selfish and demanding as every other experienced geisha.  All good deeds are to be repaid two-fold and she quickly uses her favors to Eiko as bargaining chips to gain full control of her.  Despite the cruelty she shows, no one else attempts to soften the blows for Eiko and the two develop a mother-daughter bond that gives her the strength to go on, despite the bleak outlook.

As with most Mizoguchi films, the framing and composition gives you something new to contemplate with each additional shot.  The geisha's true thoughts and feelings are often shown only to the camera, like a shared secret that cannot be expressed to anyone else.  Aside from the shots of the outdoor alley leading away from the geisha house, the film is shot almost entirely indoors.  What at first represented an opportunity to free Eiko, soon becomes a prison.  Although the rules have changed for geisha in post-war Japan, money and the old way still drive the expectations of how geisha act and they are left as helpless as a turtle out of its shell without the support of those who take them in.

Here, more than any of his other geisha films, Mizoguchi relentlessly contrasts the accepted attitudes of the time with the harsh reality they help to create.  The effects that the war had on geisha's is sad and fascinating as the naive hopes and dreams of so many young, helpless girls are used to recruite them into a world that defeats even the strongest woman.  Eiko learns just how brutal this world is ,but is less shocked by how hard their life is, than the universal acceptance of this lifestyle among many social circles.  Set in the times when the geisha was in decline and Japanese society began to move towards complete reform, it shows how diligently the few held strong to save this nearly extinct way of life, including those whose lives it ruined.  The bitterness the lifestyle creates goes far past the desire for reform, and to such a disintigration of everything good within where these miserable women want only money and control.  A false sense of empowerment is better than nothing for them, and young women full of hopes and dreams like Eiko are seen as little more than bait to attract more customers and further their own reputations, which are now important only to the few powerful men that still visit them.