Colour of the Character

The character, Hatsumomo in 'Memoirs of a Geisha' striked me the most as she has a very powerful appearance. She is the first Geisha that Chiyo sees. It is very clear to see what type of person she is and the colours she wears make this just as clear too. When we first see Hatsumomo she is wearing red which symbolises everything she is. She is a fiery woman with a temper which associates with red as the colour of heat. She also wears red when she is caught having sex, which relates to how the colour also symbolizes lust. She is later in the film 'considered a prostitute more than a geisha' which relates back to how lustful she really is and associating with red. She wears her kimonos off the shoulder in some of the scenes she's in - this could relate to the 'lust' idea as she wants to show off more skin and look more sleazy.

When Chiyo officially meets Hatsumomo she is also wearing red. As she is being introduced to the story in red the colour's symbolism sticks to her character throughout the rest of the story along with being bitter and jealous. I'm surprised she rarely wears green!

Colours of 'House of Flying Daggers'

When Mei first appears in the film she is wearing blue which represents her cold character and the sadness of her back story as we first see it. Her skin is very pale and clean to represent her purity and her lips have a bold red colour which could symbolise how dangerous she really is as she appears as a dancer but then reveals herself as a skillful martial arts fighter being part of the House of Flying Daggers movement that want to take down the government.

The scene where Mei and Jin are in the flower field has a soft yellow tinge. He gives her a bunch of flowers and puts the most beautiful flower behind her ear which is also yellow. This could represent the bond they are making and the warmth they have between each other as well as how they are falling for each other too despite the game plans they have.

Green is the colour of the film for it appears many times throughout and when it does it has a very powerful, bright, saturated colour that you can't ignore. It stands out the most out of all the other colours in the film. It could represent the evil game plans and twisted plots behind what we see as when I watched the film I found it hard to trust any of the characters as they constantly had a game plan and were lying to eachother. Even though we could see Mei and Jin falling in love it was still hard to understand the trust they had for each other even though I found out in the end it was real love.

In the final scene is the final battle of the love triangle between Mei, Jin and Leo. When Jin and Leo start to fight to the death over Mei snow starts to fall quickly making the scene white. To me I thought the white symbolized how this is the final battle and a new type of battle as the colour white had not been shown in the film yet and came off very powerful as it covers the entire scene. I felt that it made the film more intense than ever showing the equal strength and rage the men had towards eachother.