The Barbarian and the Geisha

“The geisha girl they sent to love and to destroy the barbarian from the west!”

In 1856, Townsend Harris (John Wayne) arrives in Japan as the first American Consul-General, sent by President Pierce to open a country that wants no foreigners in it. He is met with open hostility from the local officials, and with the attention of Okichi (Eiko Ando), a young geisha assigned to his household. John Huston shot the film on location in Japan, and the real towns and coastline set the scale for the story.