A Geisha is an update on the themes of the 1936 Sisters of the Gion, significantly set against the occupied Japan of 1953. It is the story of the friendship of two women, Miyoharu (Michiyo Kogure), an older geisha, and Eiko, her sixteen-year-old protégée. Ayako Wakao was the “discovery” of this film as Eiko, whose initial idealism about becoming a geisha-she buys into the myth about being a national treasure-is brutally quashed. A wealthy businessman who desires to become her patron manipulates Eiko's forthrightness and Miyoharu's sacrificial submission so that both become his kept property.