I think the movie should have ended where we see her sad on the cliff.
The rest looks like an effort to give a happy ending.
I mean even the reason that she is later called looks unreasonable and suddenly all ends well.
Given the attention to detail the film has this looks almost intended, like an add-on sawed to the end.
In the novel there's actually more to the ending about their lives after and such. Yes, she gets what she wants (the Chairman), but it's not really a glamourous ending. She's his mistress, he's still married (with children), they have a child together, it causes some sort of scandal so she moves to New York where he can only come see her sometimes and then he dies soon after because he's old by this time. The movie kind of glorified the ending. Nothing in this book is truly all that happy.
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The book, I felt, was so well written I was convinced Sayuri was a real person :p but you're right about the book, it's really not a happy ending, and the movie seems like the Hollywood fantasy ending, but if you think about it you realize the chairman mentioned he had children, and he said that when Sayuri was a child. The age difference is kind of disturbing. This movie pulls it all off really well though. I fell in love with the Chairman, Ken Wantanbe was wonderful.
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