Triple A Movie Review: Snow Flower and the Secret Fan (2011)

The Chinese film director Wayne Wang ’s new film tells the story of the very similar old story that happened in Hunan province and modern Shanghai city in the late Qing Dynasty. This theme is relatively unfamiliar to Westerners and modern Orientals, especially the extremely strong feminine and feminine perspectives. This movie subverts the male-centered characteristics of traditional screens. The film is subtly integrated into traditional culture and the conflict of modernity. However, it is precisely because the director wants to express too many themes, and the various elements are just point-to-point. What’s more, these themes have not been deeply explored. It is difficult to integrate them organically. As a result, the audience is not deeply involved, and even has a feeling of being difficult to understand or identify. This film reflects the embarrassing dilemmas encountered by foreign Chinese directors in the filming of traditional Oriental culture, as well as the obstacles that women's films encounter in the market.

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Although director Wayne Wang has been promoted to the position of Hollywood director, but the growth of her bones is still the root of the Chinese. Every Chinese director tries to reflect the elements of Chinese traditional culture in is works. However, due to the long history and the cultural atmosphere, his works are often criticized by domestic audiences as the product of oriental mysticism. For example, Wayne ’s old work, The Joy Luck Club (1993), was criticized for its strong orientalism and was considered to be “a Chinese film for foreigners”. It strengthened the East’s feudal backwardness and ignorance in the eyes of Westerners. A mysterious and weird image.This situation is very similar to the movie named, Chinese Box (1997), which is extremely mysterious in the East, and with strong feelings at the end of the century. The image of the East is like the role played by Gong Li and Maggie Cheung in the general style, but it is mysterious.

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In the aspect of expressing the conflict between Chinese and Western cultures, it is generally considered to be the first two of Ang Lee’s “family trilogy” (“Pushing Hands (1991)”, “The Wedding Banquet (1993)”), both of which are grown in the East. The cultural conflict between the generation of the father and the generation after coming to the West, the difference between the Eastern and Western cultures is naturally revealed in the gradual unfolding of the plot, and the two stories are all concluded in a relatively calm and harmonious "harmony and difference". They are still the essence of Chinese culture. In contrast, Wayne’s “The Joy Luck Club” also uses the different growth experiences and cultural backgrounds of the young and the young generations as clues, but the story shows a lot of painful growth experiences of the older generation in the past. All reflect the suffering experienced by women in the history of feudal darkness. This will make the audience feel that the director deliberately, and fall into the East in order to satisfy the Western fantasy and expectation of the East.

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In "Snow Flower and the Secret Fan", there are many sufferings of women in the late Qing Dynasty. The fragility of the bones when the little feet are wrapped, the helplessness of the mother and the strict instructions, and the custom of the matchmakers in the marriage.All of above reflect the feudal family and women in society. These women are extremely low status. Then this kind of performance makes people feel unnatural. Similar to the ”Joy Luck Club“, they all deliberately enlarge the suffering of women and enlarge the darkness of feudal society. It is true that the history of traditional Chinese history is mostly the history of those in power, that is, the history of men. Female history should indeed be taken seriously, but the film is not a real history after all, but deliberately there is an unreal false feeling.

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However, this movie lacks these artistic expression techniques, but just wants to restore the environment for women in the late Qing Dynasty. More than once in the film, "Women are born to be sent out." "Women don't care about the outside world." "Women hurry to pray for a son." Most of these lines deliberately remind viewers of the low level of feudal history. The audience seems to be able to see the surface while watching history textbooks, but can not deeply understand the feelings of the characters. There is almost no space for independent thinking for audiences.

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Although this movie can not be regarded as an excellent and successful film from the aspects of narrative, structure, artistic techniques, and subject mining, its thinking to the audience is still multi-faceted. Director wayne Wang can move such a theme to the big screen and turn it into a commercial film that can be released in China. This is a bold and successful performance. The ideology and performance theme of the film are also worthy of recognition. This is a movie that is filmed for both foreigners and Chinese, a purely female film, and an alternative "Hollywood moive."

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Movie URL: https://www.themoviedb.org/movie/58882-snow-flower-and-the-secret-fan?language=en-US
Critic: AAA
영화: https://www.themoviedb.org/movie/58882-snow-flower-and-the-secret-fan?language=ko-KR
별점: AAA