Rob Marshall, the director of Chicago , which won six Academy Awards in 2003 including best picture, will be in Saratoga in early January to film Memoirs of a Geisha . The film is based on a critically acclaimed and best-selling novel of the same name by Arthur Golden.

The marquee stars in the movie include Gong Li, Ziyi Zhang, Michelle Yeoh and Ken Watanabe. Li starred in Farewell , My Concubine while Zhang has acted in Crouching Tiger , Hidden Dragon and the recently released House of Flying Daggers . Yeoh played James Bond's love interest in Tomorrow Never Dies and also had a role in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon . Watanabe starred in the Last Samurai .

Both Li and Zhang have acted in 2046, a movie that received rave reviews at the Cannes Film Festival this year but has not been released in the U.S. yet.

"We looked at a dozen gardens between Northern California and San Diego before deciding on Hakone," said Mike Fantasia, the location manager for the film. "It has a beautiful look and very easily matches a location we have in Los Angeles, the Descanso Gardens."

Fantasia said that they had looked at locations in Hayward, San Mateo and Modesto.

Lon Saavedra, the CEO of Hakone Gardens, said that discussions began in March of this year. "We have had half a dozen visits from the film crew since," he said. Saavedra said that the crew will shoot at the gardens from Jan. 6 to 15.

The crew, numbering around 200, will be staying in San Francisco. "We are filming at a number of locations in and around the Bay Area--the Fitzgerald Marine Reserve, Muir beach and the Sacramento train station," said Fantasia.

Memoirs of a Geisha is being produced by Sony Pictures and is expected to hit movie theaters by December, 2005. The film tells the story of a young Japanese girl who is sold to a geisha house in Kyoto. She becomes the target of jealousy and rivalries but overcomes numerous obstacles to become a celebrated geisha, well acquainted with Japanese high society. With World War II looming on the horizon, it is a period of tumult and change for the country and its people.

Noted filmmaker Steven Spielberg is one of the executive producers of the film. According to film journals, Spielberg had considered directing the movie before Marshall took up the offer. Spielberg's connection with Saratoga dates back to the mid-1960s when he was a student at Saratoga High School. The director has said before in interviews that he did not have a particularly happy time at the school and was the target of anti-Semitic remarks. Spielberg will not be in Saratoga during the filming because he will be busy with another production.

"We have insurance and a significant damage deposit for the gardens," said Saavedra, adding that Sony will also provide security during the shooting of the film. "A team of volunteers will be on-site constantly during the shooting to monitor the activities of the crew."

Jack Tomlinson, a Japanese garden specialist who works at Hakone, said that he will be the chief watchdog during the film shooting. "We are honored that they chose us. We are working hard to get the gardens presentable and clean," he said.

Tomlinson said that one of the scenes to be shot at the garden deals with the geisha's visit to an exotic Japanese resort with her lover. Another scene will be shot in the pond area.

"We are pruning some of the vegetation to get the correct camera angle. The script calls for a Hawaiian type landscape. Some other plants will be brought in to make the scenery more colorful," said Tomlinson.

"Hakone is fragile, so we will have to be careful not to damage anything," he said. Tomlinson said that he was relieved that it was a movie about a geisha and not an action movie involving fight scenes or explosives going off.

This is the first time that a major motion picture is being shot at the garden. Some commercials have used Hakone as a location before.

In the late 1980s, the garden was talked about as a possible location for Black Rain, a movie by filmmaker Ridley Scott who later directed blockbusters like Black Hawk Down and Gladiator. However, the movie ended up being shot in Los Angeles and Napa Valley.

The garden will be closed to the public during the nine days of filming. "But major donors and supporters will be allowed to view the filming," said Saavedra.

He said that shooting of the film would enhance the national and the international stature that Hakone Gardens has already received.

In October of this year, the National Trust for Historic Preservation, Save America's Treasures and Home & Garden Television honored the Hakone Gardens at a special presentation. Representatives of HGTV, the National Trust and Comcast Cable also gave $68,000 to the gardens. A special program on Hakone aired on HGTV all through November.

"It will be fun to see our garden on the big screen," said Tomlinson, who said that Hakone was one of the finest Japanese gardens outside of Japan.

Tomlinson said that the shooting of the film will help the gardens to "keep the light on and the doors open."

"But," he added, "it will not be Saratoga's little secret anymore."