By Joe Bendel. In today’s China, girls are an endangered species. Largely due to the government’s one-child policy, sex-specific abortions and abandonments have sky-rocketed. It was not much easier for Chinese girls during the early Nineteenth Century, either. However, the Laotong (roughly translated as “Old Same”) oath of friendship helped sustain many young women. Yet the turbulence of the time will test two women’s Laotong bond in Wayne Wang’s Snow Flower and the Secret Fan (trailer here), which opens today in New York.
Snow Flower and Lily were born under the same sign and had their feet bound on the same day. Even though Wang waters down the literally bone-crunching reality of this practice, what the film shows is still enough to make a brawny man cringe. Unfortunately, this was considered necessary to strike a suitable marriage bargain.
Despite her family’s mean circumstances, Snow Flower’s dainty feet earn her a prestigious match. In contrast, Lily experiences the reverse social mobility, winding up betrothed to a lowly butcher after her father’s opium addiction ruins her family. Though separated by events obviously beyond their control, the two women exchange messages written within the folds of a fan, employing Nüshu, the secret script used by many Chinese women up until the Twentieth Century. (One hopes there is now an internet equivalent in widespread use today).
In parallel lives, Faye Wong Canto-pop listening high school students Nina and Sophia become a late Twentieth Century Laotong pair. Nina excels academically, while Sophia struggles emotionally in the wake of her bankrupted father’s suicide. Despite their recent estrangement, Nina puts her career on hold when a traffic accident renders Sophia comatose. As it happens, Sophia was carrying on her person a copy of her manuscript, which tells the story of Snow Flower and Lily.
Based on Lisa See’s bestselling novel, Secret Fan’s screenplay (credited to Angela Workman, Ron Bass, and Michael K. Ray) adds the contemporary story arc, allowing them to write in a part for Hugh Jackman as Arthur, Sophia’s sketchy night club impresario love interest. He even has a musical number, a novelty love song probably not designed to showcase his Broadway chops. Continue reading Laotong Story: LFM Reviews Snow Flower and the Secret Fan