Snow Flower and the Secret Fan

Wayne Wang has directed another winner, "Snow Flower and the Secret Fan". It is a well designed "chick flick" that overcomes ones emotions to the point of great empathy for both the characters and the eras in which it is set. Bingbing Li plays Nina/Lily, and Gianna Jun stars as Snow Flower/Sophia. They are like blood sisters who rotate back and forth from the 19th to the 21st centuries. The story is compelling. The religious and cultural overtones are educational and well depicted. The scenes in Shanghai as well as Australia are vistas that hold one in awe. It is a Drama worth viewing and now is on Blu Ray DVD and worth the effort for the clarity of sound and visual effect. The music is especially well adapted to the film and provides another reason for the extra effect of a good sound system.

One of the key discoveries in my life is that for me and for many of my women friends, our friendship is often the most wonderful gift of life. This movie celebrates friendship among women. It relates two stories of women in China whose friendship is signed as a contract, a laotong. Laotong, the movie explains, is a life-long relationship between women, often considered more important than marriage. The movie presents two young friends in Shanghai in the 21st century who celebrate a laotong. Their friendship is portrayed with the closeness, empathy and support that is well known about friendship among women. And it also presents the difficulties and distances that are very real and perhaps unavoidable in close relationships. In a similar way, the movie presents two 19th century women who had had a laotong in very different circumstances and for whom the friendship is also both a marvelous gift and a difficult relationship. Movies are often about relations between a man and a women but seldom about women friends. That is why this movie seems to be controversial. It is not always accepted that for women their women friends are their most rewarding relationships despite the complicated faces of any human partnership. Go see the movie. It shows a side of women's life that is amazingly real but poorly understood.

This is a well cast and nicely filmed but uneven movie. The 2 leads Li Bing Bing and Gianna Jun are lovely in different ways. Only Asian actresses could play the same characters as teens and in their 30s convincingly.

The story concerns two pairs of best girl friends, one set in present day and one pair set in the mid 1800s in China. The modern story is a bit less interesting than the modern one. The 1800s story has bound feet (ouch), civil war and rural poverty. The modern story is about career and love with a foreigner (an unintentionally hilarious Hugh Jackman - that song!).

The changes between the 2 stories are a bit too frequent. It isn't confusing about who is who but it just breaks up and jumbles the narrative a little too much.

The movie is a bit long and maudlin. With too many lingering sad looks. Feel like shouting Hurry Up sometimes! That is the old fashioned Chinese soap opera part of it.

Overall worth one watch.

Sunflower and the Secret Fan is the poignant tale of two 21st century Asian girls and their matches in the 19th century: Both couples are bound by the dictates of a patriarchal culture that challenges the natural love and devotion they feel for each other. These lady laotongs or "old sames" take an oath to make them faithful sisters forever, the outward show of an enduring, lifelong commitment to their sisterhood.

Director Wayne Wang's challenge is to intercut the centuries and women without confusing the audience, a virtue not always achieved in two hours of traversing between times. His limited success can be attributed to the striking skyline of modern Shanghai, an apt metaphor for the change in the ladies' lives, indeed for change itself.

Just as arresting as the visual images is the stringed music of Rachel Portman, which dictates emotions as strongly as any other score I have heard this year. Some might complain of manipulation; I enjoy the excess as if it were an ancient Chinese fan of innumerable design. BTW, the titular fan was used by the 19th century ladies to make messages to each other in their special language. Wang's considerable success showing devoted friends in Joy Luck Club is evidenced in the ladies here.

The bonding of protagonists is strong on the surface, but because there is so much to do in only 2 hours, we never have sustained conversation among them to verify what we intuit without much dialogue. It would be sweet to linger more with them while they show through dialogue the bond that makes them sacrifice for each other throughout their lives.

Snow Flower and the Secret Fan in the end turns on love, its many forms and demands and on change, which frequently derails the best intentions of love itself. The ladies here evidence in delicate ways the tumult and reward accompanying a lifelong commitment to another human being. And that's no secret.

A film about laotong, the bonding of two women for eternity as kindred sisters, is unusual to say the least and one that is beautifully retold in the manner of so many oriental stories must be a rarity. The reason it works so well is because it is shot at two layers, one in the present day, and the other at a time when women needed each other for support. In fact the retelling of the latter is the result of a book written by Sophia of the life of Snow Flower in the title. In each layer Sophia/Snow Flower is bonded to Nina/Lily. The acting by Gianna Jun (Sophia/Snow Flower) and Bingbing Li as Nina/Lily is extraordinary with sterling support from an excellent cast. The cinematography and soundtrack are also first rate.

In essence the story explores love in many guises via the relationship of the two present day characters and their mirrors of old, but it is only at the conclusion of the film that we are allowed to be inside the minds of the kindred sisters and their relationship. This is not a film that pivots upon romantic love since it delves very deep into the agendas the women have and for that reason alone it may not be a commercial success. That shouldn't detract from its beauty as a work of art but clearly it has had an effect on the film's popularity on IMDb. And that is a shame because it is well worth lasting all of its one hundred and four minutes including the beautiful wash drawings displayed with the final credits.

I don't know how this film manages less than six on the ratings for I feel a little mean in only giving it eight because of the material it explores. It is worthy of a visit to cinema, or even ownership of a DVD. Oriental cinema has made another worthy addition to its growing list of excellent stories turned into film.