Sisterhood of the Traveling Fans?!! : Snow Flower and the Secret Fan

Snow Flower and the Secret Fan, an adaptation of Lisa See's book directed by Wayne Wang, is a touching story about two best friends or 'LaoTong' sworn to be together forever.  After Sophia is hospitalized by a car accident and stuck in a comma, Nina makes up her mind to investigate what happened to Sophia that led her to misfortune.  Nina soon finds out that Sophia is writing a book about 19th Century LaoTong, and thus, the audience is transported into a world of traditional Chinese culture through the eyes of women, having to endure the pains of foot-binding, and the downfalls of a rigid patriarchal society.

I first picked up Snow Flower and the Secret Fan from my local grocery store rental based upon the assumptions my dad had given me about the movie.  When the movie first hit theaters, my dad continually pestered me to see the movie because it was Chinese (we're Chinese).  Perhaps I should've done more research on the movie before swiping my credit card.  It's not that the movie was terrible.  In fact the movie was quite enlightening.  I learned quite a lot about traditional chinese customs and culture, and for a brief few hours, I was able to step into the tiny shoes of 19th Century Chinese women.  I'll admit, I shed a tear once or twice, but the overall impact the film could have had was missing.

Wang had a unique challenge of presenting four different protagonist characters in two different time periods using only two actresses.  His goal was to show the parallel lives between LaoTong of the 19th Century and LaoTong in modern day.  As one can imagine, trying to develop four different characters simultaneously and shifting back and forth in between time periods can at times be confusing.  At times, especially in the beginning of the movie I had mixed up Sophia for Lily, Lily for Snow Flower, Snow Flower for Nina, and Nina for Nina...wait...I mean Nina for Sophia.  Furthermore, 2 hours is not enough time to fully develop the characters to the point where the audience feels they fully know the characters.  Thus, although the acting felt vibrant and organic (minus Hugh Jackman's out of place cameo appearance) , the very emotional scenes feel almost manipulative as Wang and tries to draw out certain emotional responses, and yet does not have the in depth character development written into the script for the audience to respond accordingly.  The main characters feel like strangers, and though I wanted to lament with Nina and Sophia, and Lily and Snow Flower, I often felt it wasn't my place to do so.

Overall, If you're looking to learn more about Chinese Culture, or if you hate guys and are having a girls-night-in after a hard break-up, watch this film.  Under all other circumstances, I wouldn't recommend it.

Watched it?  What'd you think?

-冯