terrible - Snow Flower and the Secret Fan (2011) Discussion

[–] The_Bookreader 13 years ago

I haven't seen it, but what made it bad to you?

This time, Effie White's gonna win.

Whitney was wrong. Children are no longer the future.

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[–] 13 years ago

[deleted]

[–] stopsign9999 13 years ago

started off OK and it's nicely shot, but the modern day scenes are catastrophically bad. The acting is at times unspeakable in the modern scenes and the period stuff is maudlin and predictable. I almost LOL'ed at some of the ending shots (if you see it you might know which shots I'm talking about...)

Really hokey and it reached new levels of bad acting.

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[–] Callie36 13 years ago

I haven't seen it (will probably wait for DVD if the early reviews are any indication) but just seeing the trailer I was so confused...why in heck make this some sort of generational movie?! Book was fine (tho not great) as it was. Everything doesn't have to be the Joy Luck Club or whatever in heck they were going for, and it doesn't sound like this aspect added anything.

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[–] rkramer-389-888083 12 years ago

I actually think the director had the modern day girls speaking English to each other in private as a sort of parallel to their own secret language others around them wouldn't understand but wow it was distracting.

It always sounded like they were putting all of their focus on trying to get the pronunciation of the English correct and the acting/tone of the words suffered mightily as a result. I won't say this single aspect ruined the movie for me, but man, it didn't help.

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[–] vedrana_a 12 years ago

Yes, I expected a lot more.

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[–] jjamison-2 12 years ago

Unbelievable what they did to the story. The book was wonderful, but the movie was a disaster. I couldn't believe how bad it was.

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[–] trez1 12 years ago

The book was great, the film was a boring mess. The actors struggled w/ no script to speak of, terrible direction and a muddled conjoining of the plot. Even the feminist/love aspects of the story (which formed the core of the book) got lost in a haze of empty staring. A waste of time.

"If you're laughing, I defy you to be afraid"

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[–] Mox_Factor 12 years ago

it felt like the ramblings of an angry protester taking random swipes at anything they're against. it has no cohesion between scenes, like that bit about the new input software for nushu, it felt like it was added because the director thought this already obtuse bit still needs reinforcing, like it needed to be screamed out at the viewer because we're that dense. i really want to like the movie, having never read the book, but it's just such a skim job, from the actors and the direction (probably the dialogue too).

--anti-dubber.

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[–] Garfieldthakat 12 years ago

Yep. What was the point of the modern day story? It's been a while since I've read the book, but from Wikipedia it seems there isn't one. The modern parallel is rather terrible; they should have stuck to the actual book's story.

No, the acting isn't great--why is Hugh Jackman in this? He's got a great voice, but his Chinese was a little painful to listen to. I get that was probably the point, but he wasted in such a terrible role.

I'll give them credit for actually having a lot of the dialogue in Chinese and not in English, and actually showing some of the effects of footbinding (EW!). But wow, what a terrible movie.

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[–] Chili_Peppers 12 years ago

I didn't think it was terrible but I did think it had its dull parts. It started off interesting but I would have probably liked to see more of the foot binding and less of Nina just walking around.

"This isn't a thimble, it's Turkish nipple armor."

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