Snow Flower and Lily are two girls growing up in China in the 1800s. They’re born on the same day — an auspicious sign — and have their feet bound on the same day. So Lily, who is a poor girl that has been “blessed” with beautiful(ly bound) feet, becomes laotong (legal bff) to Snow Flower, a girl from a wealthy family. No matter how far away they are from each other, their lives are forever bound, kinda like their feet. Oh, I’m not giving enough respect to the history of laotong and Chinese foot-binding? Neither does this film. With so many tales to tell, and so many ways to tell them, Snow Flower and the Secret Fan instead goes the long, boring, incomprehensible route, making me wish for the movie it could have been.
I can see why Ziyi Zhang (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon) bailed on this before production started. Though I’m not sure if even the great Li Gong (To Live) could have saved this dud. Director Wayne Wang has had modest success cranking out so-so chick flicks like Maid In Manhattan and Anywhere But Here, but nailed the Asian generation gap in The Joy Luck Club. Unfortunately, Snow Flower is more like the former than the latter, making a riveting book a boring film.
Slapping a parallel story about two girls growing up in Shanghai that seem to be living very similar lives to the troubled laotong pair ends up providing nothing but an easy excuse to hit the lobby for more popcorn. It’s not like you’ll miss anything. Adding the modern day touches cripples the story, and the fact that the lead actresses have trouble emoting while wrapping themselves around the English language only makes matters worse. The people behind me kept snickering each time someone was supposed to emote and ended up sounding wooden, and I couldn’t blame ‘em one bit. Maybe the actresses were just struggling to make the dialogue seem relevant.
And it’s a hard, cold day when Hugh Jackman seems lackluster. Let’s just say that this movie makes Kate & Leopold seem like Shakespeare. It’s not his fault, it’s the fault of tacking on this modern day storyline so Amuuuurican audiences won’t have to read so many gosh-darn subtitles. Y’know, because Read Hard. At least I figure that’s why they did it. Dumbing down a book to make a movie that’ll reach a wider audience never works. Okay, almost never works, but let’s round up for the sake of argument here. This film spends more time on the extra, modern-day story than the actual story. Or maybe it just feels that way. Meanwhile, the bits and pieces of Snow Flower and Lily’s story get lost in the background.
As far as the backstage stuff goes, (mostly because I’m tired of talking about how disappointing this movie is) there’s no difference between the modern day and the 1800s in terms of overall look. Both the modern day and the flashbacks are flat and lack any sort of spark of interest. Here’s where the cinematographer/director/Bueller could have done something to make someone, something, anything stand out. But no. Though the costumes have an authentic look, and they’re well crafted, they’re an afterthought. To what, exactly, I’ve no clue, since it seems that nothing was given any special attention. But with a story about two girls that grew up on different sides of the tracks, you’d think the scenes in the wealthier areas would be a bit more vibrant, even to showcase how all the trappings didn’t make up for having a friend so far away. As it stands, why would one girl leave her husband and family to join the wealthier other when everything in both their lives is dull and drab? Another missed opportunity to add to the long list.
The biggest crime here is that the makers of this movie missed the opportunity to enlighten Western viewers about the Taiping Rebellion and the practices of laotong and foot-binding in their quest to make this movie “modern”. Save your money and re-watch The Joy Luck Club. Or, better yet, read Snow Flower and the Secret Fan instead of heading to see this lackluster movie.
