Warning: spoiler ahead. Read at your own risk if you have not watched/read the movie/book.
Right, I know previously I said “my one thought throughout the whole movie was ‘what is this shit?!’” but, after rewatching it two more times, I found it to be quite entertaining (and yes I can pretty much memorize some of the lines by now lol). And the pretty/handsome cast does help in making sure I didn’t fall asleep during each rewatch.
The thing is, during my first watch I did too much comparison between the movie and the book. Being a person who loves the book version more, I felt that the movie was not up to par with the book because the movie doesn’t show all the emotions that the book does. The movie doesn’t tell the whole story; well actually it did, just in shorter scenes (I’d prefer if it showed a bit more).
In the movie, actresses Li Bing Bing and Gianna Jeon play the two main characters in the book, Lily and Snow Flower (Xue Hua) respectively. Besides them, the two actresses also play the two leads in the present, Nina and Sophia respectively.
the pretty ladies (Ms Li in blue while Ms Jeon in red) and the handsome Hugh Jackman
The funny thing is; neither of them spoke English as their first language and almost half the movie was in English. Their pronunciation was a bit off, with some influences of their first language (Chinese for Ms Li and Korean for Ms Jeon). And Ms Jeon took a crash course in Mandarin to take on the two roles. Her Chinese is so cute because it was so off but I think in the movie they dubbed it? Since this is my first time watching one of her movies, I cannot recognize her voice yet. But I can very confidently say that at some scenes in the past, her voice was definitely dubbed.
There’s one thing I’m wondering though, did they really bind the kids’ feet? Because the sound of their feet bones breaking was really terrible to sit through. I actually removed my earpiece until the foot binding was over. But the best part was after they got the foot bound. They had to walk rounds in their room to fully break all the bones. With tear stained cheeks, little Xue Hua gave her mom a ‘WTF? You expect me to walk with my feet like this?’ look when her mom told her to start walking. It was priceless, like imagine a kid going ‘lady, you did not just asked me to walk after wrapping up my feet like this. Like wtf?’ bwahahaha the kids were crying but I kept laughing (felt kinda bad though haha)
And now, here comes the spoiler. I’m going to, as briefly as possible, summarise the movie.
Like I said before, the movie opens with Nina being in her company’s dinner and Sophia getting hit by a taxi, not a bus (my mistake, sorry), and then she ends up in a coma. Nina gets a call from the hospital and rushes over. From there, Nina collects Sophia’s bag and rummages it, finding a stack of papers (it being the book Sophia wrote with the same title as the movie).
It then flashbacks to 1997, when the duo had just met and quickly became good friends in high school, Nina was employed to be Sophia’s Mandarin tutor for she just migrated to Shanghai at the age of 14 (or 15?). Nina got kicked out of the household after Sophia’s stepmother had had enough of her and told her not to come here anymore. But Nina snuck back in with the help of Sophia’s aunt and that’s when they started talking about the tiny feet and laotong stuff.
Sophia described it as ‘she’s talking about my mother’s mother’s mother’s mother’ when her aunt showed the two teens a pair of tiny shoes. Her aunt introduced the laotong concept to them, saying that laotongs are sworn sisters for life and the two dorks held up their pinkies to each other saying ‘sisters?’ ‘sisters!!!’ *stupid dorks..kekeke* then they signed their very own laotong contract..on a Faye Wong cd…LOL!!
Then with some alternates here and there, the time frame moves further into the past into 19th century China, where the two little girls are getting their feet bound. After that it skips to a year later when the matchmaker pays Lily’s home a visit, bringing along Xue Hua with her. And that’s how the two kids meet. The matchmaker then takes them to a temple in another town and they wrote their laotong contract and promised to meet there every year.
Back in the present, Nina is trying to trace Sophia’s whereabouts after their fight six months ago. You see, Nina is too worried about Sophia (Sophia being the more fun loving, worry causer of the two) and she finds it impossible to stop worrying about her and is on the verge of giving up her chance to go to New York to set up a new company branch. So Sophia plots to get Nina to hate her in order for Nina to go chase after her dream (noble, ain’t she? Haha)
Since they were younger, Nina had done so many things for Sophia like when they were going to take their college entrance exam, Sophia got sick at the last moment and Nina took the exam for her.
“You thought I couldn’t pass my exam..I feel bad”
“Don’t worry about it.”
In the book, a misunderstanding caused the two sworn sisters to break and only reunited when Xue Hua was at the brink of death. Lily finally gets over her pride and tends to her laotong until her last breath. That is how the book ends.
The movie, it ends with Nina finds out the whole truth and forgives Sophia for her past mistakes (fight 6months ago) and decides to stay in Shanghai.
***
After watching it 3times, I freaking love this movie. LOL I’m such a hypocrite. But I think the thing is to watching any book-turn-movie is to stop comparing the book and the movie and just enjoy the two as separate entities.
lol i just realised how much i've babbled about this book/movie here in this blog.
Edit1: OMG I LOVE THE OST!!!!
i haven't finish listening to them all yet..but the first is definitely my favourite!!
this track was played when the two little kids first meet
