(US director Rob Marshall at the presentation of his movie 'Memoirs of a Geisha.')

Various pirated copies of the film, which was released in Japan and the United States earlier this month, were on offer in the southern Chinese boomtown of Shenzhen, the Hong-Kong based Apple Daily newspaper reported.

The report said the quality of both the DVDs and the Chinese subtitles was rather poor, as most were recorded straight in the cinemas.

"Memoirs of a Geisha" tells the story of a Japanese girl from a poor fishing village who is sold to a geisha house and goes on to romance a rich businessman.

It is based on Arthur Golden's 1997 novel, which sold more than four million copies in English and was translated into 32 languages.

The film, co-produced by Steven Spielberg and starring Chinese actresses Zhang Ziyi and Gong Li alongside Malaysia's Michelle Yeoh, will be released in China on February 9 and in Hong Kong on January 12.