After reading the book, I was looking forward to the movie..was.. because the trailer seemed really nice and all. I finally found it and streamed it last night and I didn’t really like it to be honest. The movie pretty much follows the book’s details pretty closely. But they skipped a lot of details to make time for the scenes in present day. the movie alternates between the past and the present because it was a story about the ancestors of two present day best friends, who so happened to be the two main characters in the book, Lily and Snow Flower. (and I was so right about her name being Xue Hua in Chinese! Haha!)
The movie starts with present day Lily (Nina) being in a company celebration dinner and Snow Flower (Sophia) outside the building trying to call her best friend but Nina didn’t notice the phone and Sophia left the place and got hit by a bus afterwards. The hospital called Nina and it sets the story in motion. In Sophia’s hospital room, Nina rummages Sophia’s bag and found a stack of papers being the story ‘Snow Flower and the Secret Fan’ that Sophia had written. So Nina reads the story and the flashbacks start.
The scenes of the past, started with the two little girls starting their foot binding (oh gawd the scene was so hard to watch! Imagine two little girls getting their foot bound, crying and the sound of bone breaking every now and then..eee!!) and then the story flows pretty much the same as the book. the only difference was that they skipped so many pages.
So like I said before, they alternate between past and present. In the present, Nina is trying to track her friend’s whereabouts before the accident. The two got into a fight few months ago and lost contact. Then..ah…you guys can go check it out yourselves..hehe
Having said all that, I can safely say that the book is so much nicer than the movie. Thought the book was so much more heartbreaking and difficult to read, the movie was … I don’t know… my only thought throughout the whole movie was ‘what is this shit?!’ haha
But to my surprise, the movie stars some really big names like Hugh Jackman, Korean actress Jeon JiHyun and a famous Chinese actress Li BingBing. O.O
Edit1: still, having said all that 'what is this shit?!' while watching it, i kinda wanna watch it for the second time. i don't know why, but i just feel like it. kinda makes me all warm and fuzzy inside thinking about those two best friends.
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my review of the book can be found here if anybody needs a refresher.
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