Not having seen "Snow Flower and the Secret Fan" before now in 2015 was a really big mistake on my account, because this movie is nothing short of spectacular. This is really a beautiful movie, and it is a definite must watch for anyone who enjoy cinema that offers something astounding.The movie is really nicely set up as it skips back and forth between present day China and ancient China, as we follow two sisters in the heart throughout the ages. And director Wayne Wang captured some really beautiful moments of sisterhood, love, friendship and loyalty."Snow Flower and the Secret Fan" has a really good cast, and I must admit that I was more than pleasantly surprised to see talented Korean actresse Ji-hyun Jun starring in this movie, and she really carried the movie so well. And right up there beside her was Bingbing Li with her equally impressive performance. Put together Jun and Li really shined on the screen with amazing chemistry.A movie is nothing with a proper soundtrack, and the music in "Snow Flower and the Secret Fan" was majestic and almost ethereal. The score for this movie was so well-composed and complimented the movie quite well.The wardrobe, setting and scenery for "Snow Flower and the Secret Fan" was quite good, and there was a lot of nice details to be found in just about every scene.This is a very emotional story that was quite nicely put on the screen by director Wayne Wang, and the movie does spur an interest to read Lisa See's novel to fully get every detail to this story that spans the ages."Snow Flower and the Secret Fan" is a beautiful movie that is well-worth watching and should be watched by anyone who enjoy the finer moments in cinema.

Watched this movie on home CD. Would loved to have seen it on the big screen.This was a beautiful movie, but since most was spoken Chinese and for some odd reason the copy we watched from home had no sub-titles during the majority of the spoken word, which was Chinese, we had to guess at what was going on.The movie is clear enough to figure things out and some English is spoken, but I would loved to have known what was being said during the Chinese spoken portions.Overall, a lovely story of how close friendships are important. It also showed how people will find a way to connect, even when forbidden to do so.I was also interesting to see how Chinese culture represses women.

The book explores the culture of 19th century China through a woman's eyes; in the book you see real relationships and heartbreak. The movie squanders all of that in favor of appearing "artistic" or "deep"; something it does not pull off at all.They unnecessarily add some modern characters to "parallel" the girls from the book. Said modern characters randomly switch between speaking Chinese and English, adding to the overall confusion and mess of the movie. The movie constantly switches back and forth from the modern to the actual book story line, making it extremely hard to follow, even for someone who has read the book. This also means that you make no real attachment to any of the characters. They change lines around and only include scenes of "significance" from the book- making it all completely insignificant. You get no sense of the deep-heart love they speak of. You barely see the characters at all.Overall, it is essentially two hours of thinking, "Is the movie going to start yet?"A real waste of an amazing book.

Snow Flower and the Secret Fan is a beautifully written book by Lisa See; it tells the fictional story of two women, bound together since childhood as laotong, or old sames. The laotong relationship is a life- long relationship between women, often with similar birthdays, horoscopes, or other social or biological markers; and was often revered higher than a marriage. They communicate with each other, across time and distance, on fans on which they write their special women's language, nu shu. Nu shu is a complex language, where context is paramount, and is reserved for women only. See's book details the life of two girls, Snow Flower a daughter of a formerly-well-to-do family whose grandfather was an Imperial Scholar, and Lily, whose family is of a middle class caste. They share their life experiences including the painful process of foot binding, mothers who push for good marriages, and the struggles that each encounter once they are married, even war comes to their area. Throughout their lives there is tension, both beautiful and awful until a misunderstanding severs their bond for several years. Wayne Wang once again fills the screen with a great caste, wonderful scenery, and subtle emotion. But here is where the film adaptation fails. The beautiful and tragic story by Lisa See is eclipsed by a contemporary story line created to follow the lives of 2 friends in modern day Shanghai: Nina, a go getter who is very ambitious, and Sophia, a Chinese Korean who has struggled with her mother's death, her father's subsequent remarriage to a shrew, and her father's untimely death. **SPOILER** It is suggested that Sophia is descended from Snow Flower, and has the fans that the women had shared throughout their life together. There is too much focus on the contemporary characters, which are created solely for this film. The tension and strife that Snow Flower and Lily faced throughout their lives is gone, and events are extremely telescoped. As women of different classes in 19th century China, their fates were bound to their marriages, and their own relationship was shaped by their relationships with their mothers (but whose isn't?). This is lost in the film.Wayne Wang does a beautiful script, but attention to the original story would have done this film more justice.