This is a movie based on the true story of Mineko Iwasaki who has written a book about her life called "Geisha of Gion" (also known as: Geisha, a Life). If you don't know, that's the book where Arthur Golden based his book "Memoirs of a Geisha" on and later the movie with the same name was based on. Specially if you like that movie you should watch this one too. I like both movies a lot but this movie stays more true to the real story of Mineko Iwasaki. I find the story really interesting and it gives you a good view of how the life of a Geisha is with all it's traditions.
As a big fan of "Memoirs of a Geisha" I thought this movie would be another version of Sayuri (the geisha in memoirs), but I figure out that Hana Ikusa is more cultural and with important details about the real life of a geisha/geiko. I really liked this movie, but sometimes I was like "Oh, i think i missing somethin here.." because they don't get into many details and then you need to imagine what happened. It worth watching if you wanna learn more about geishas and see our beautiful Inoue Mao!