SnowFlower and the Secret Fan

After reading the book by Lisa See, we just had to see the movie.? “Snow Flower and the Secret Fan” is a story about two best friends (“laotong”) growing up together in modern China (although these characters are not in the book). The girls are so close that they would risk their future to make sure that the other girl has a good one. But when one girl gets hurt, the other has to find out many secrets that girl was hiding from her. Those secrets are about SnowFlower and Lily. Bringing in the present day lives of best friends was an interesting way to delve into the lives of SnowFlower and Lily, but the story seemed a bit long-winded and disjointed. ? The book, however, was a wonderful exploration of laotong and footbinding and life in early-19th-century China.

Typically, we prefer the book over the movies and our preference didn’t change after seeing SnowFlower and the Secret Fan. But, any movie would have been hard to live up to the book, and if you haven’t read the book then the movie is enjoyable. But if you’ve read the book, we recommend waiting until this movie comes out on DVD.