Sayuri’s real name is Chiyo Sakamoto. She is the daughter of a poor fisherman. Her mother is very ill and on the verge of death. Chiyo is sold into servitude at a geisha house at the age of nine and works to pay off the amount of her purchase and the silk kimono she was blackmailed into soiling. She runs into the Chairman as a little girl and is inspired to become a geisha so that she may one day be apart of his world. Years later, when she is more a young woman than a little girl, she is visited by Mameha, who is the head of a rival geisha house, and told that she will be trained to be a geisha. It is in this time that Chiyo’s name changes to Sayuri.

Suzuka Ohgo plays Chiyo as a child at the very beginning. Zhang Ziyi plays Sayuri as an adult for the majority of the movie.