I know that people have issues with Memoirs like its in English and its supposed to be set in Japan but the actors are Chinese... Taking those into consideration I still consider it one of my favourite movies of all time. Its a movie, not a documentary, the purpose is to convey a story to the audience.
I think the direction is brilliant. The cinematography is fantastic, costumes, story line, characters. I love the characters
A while after I watched the movie I read the book. I found it to be quite a slow read but still good. It explains a lot that the movie doesn't. For example I thought the water in her eyes was referring to her crying, ahem (a bit embarrassing), but no it goes on to explain about elements and horoscopes and things.