Watch Snow Flower and the Secret Fan Online Megavideo

Starring: Gianna Jun, Li Bingbing, Hugh Jackman, Archie Kao

Directed by Wayne Wang PG: sexuality, violence, disturbing images, drug use

Length: 120 minutes

Three out of five stars

The individual stories in the heart of this woman-centered story has two centuries, with one third of them. However, I was touched and surprised when the world of the 19th century and the province of Hunan Shanghai briefly today, magically, a time shared together on the screen. I felt a little less when it happened again. Even less for the third time, when I began to wonder if girls become cowboys and travel time.

The problem with the brake, has already shaken Wayne Wang, director of the marshmallow uncompromising such as Maid in Manhattan, because of Win-Dixie and Last Holiday. Again, it was also apologetic Schmaltz, smoke, and the Joy Luck Club, among others. Snow Flower and the Secret Fan is somewhere in the middle, five of 10 on the scale cutesy.

The story begins with the up-and-forth Shanghai banker Nina (Li Bingbing) to get a promotion and an offer to help set up a New York office of his boss.

Before you can leave, but it gets the word that his childhood friend Sophia (Korean actress Gianna Jun) is in a coma after a motorcycle accident. Her purse was a script of two childhood friends growing up in the 19 th century in China.

Nina begins to read the story and the film moves nicely to 1829 and the birth of Lily and Snow. Both come from very different backgrounds is poor Lily, daughter of Snow Flower of an aristocrat, but his birthday identical, a matchmaker decreed that he should be a matching pair of stars.

We learned that, while marriages are arranged by political economy, and procreation, marriage is about companionship and emotional support laotong between the two women. Lily flower and snow and even learn a secret language, Nu Shu, which used to hand-write messages to fans, the increase from one to another.

It is not fully effective if subtle is the technique of having the actors with their characters the same counterparts in 1800. Nina is Lily, while Sophie takes the role of Snow Flower. You might think that Nina, the wealthy financier, might be a better option for the birth flower of snow noble, but the two stories we are taught that everyone took a turn at the wheel of fortune.

More economic fluctuations, but Snow Flower and Secret is a story about friendship, guys, apparently female, but sensitive should be able to tell. It is made sacrifices and best kept secrets for the benefit of another.

Snow Flower and is based on a novel by Lisa See, to be held in 1903 and renounces the modern framing device. He works in film, however, allows such concepts as the secret writing to be explained quickly and the "fan mail" to switch between generations and partners laotong.