The Little Book of Kindness

This film, based on the novel by Arthur Golden, unfolds from the perspective of Chiyo (Zhang Ziyi), a girl who, at the age of nine, is sold to a geisha house in Kyoto in the early 1930s. Here, she learns that becoming a geisha can be the single path to wealth and independence for a woman. The head geisha of her house, however, Hatsumomo (Gong Li), is bitterly jealous of Chiyo and abuses her at every opportunity. Eventually Chiyo is taken under the wing of Hatsumomo's rival, Mameha (Michelle Yeoh), by far the most famous and successful geisha in their district. Under Mameha's tutelage, Chiyo becomes Sayuri, the most legendary geisha in the nation, skilled in all areas, from conversation to dance, and sought after by seemingly every man alive…except for the one whom she has secretly longed for since she began her training, The Chairman (Ken Watanabe) – a man who showed her kindness at a time when her view of the world had turned the most bleak. Now as World War II approaches, Japan stands at the brink of a new era and Sayuri must confront the possibility that history will leave all that she has worked for behind.

Mikio Naruse was a contemporary of the great post-war Japanese masters Yasujiro Ozu and Kenji Mizoguchi and indeed his works lie somewhere in between Ozu’s natural rhythms of everyday family life and Mizoguchi’s outlook on female issues and social injustices. In some respects Naruse even surpasses these two great directors in their own areas, his films being more naturalistic and not as formally rigid as Ozu, tackling a wider range of subjects and issues, those concerns often being adapted from the works of female authors, giving them a truer perspective on female issues than Mizoguchi, whose films can often seem like a man’s guilt-ridden perspective on the treatment of women in society.

Roma Downey—best known as the beloved angel on the TV show Touched by an Angel—has created a beautiful book filled with encouragement and hope, assuring us of God’s comforting presence in our lives.

Roma Downey - best known as the beloved angel on the TV show Touched by an Angel - has created a beautiful book filled with encouragement and hope, assuring us of God's comforting presence in our lives.