Snow Flower And The Secret Fan 2011 [WATCH ONLINE MOVIE MEGA VIDEO] ~ .::NON STOP ONLINE FREE MOVIES N WWE ON MOVIE2U2.COM

Passionate fans of particular novels can be very picky about how a much-loved book is translated into film - it's a truism which applies even when the film adaptation is as faithful to the mood and narrative of the book as it can possibly be.

Snow Flower and the Secret Fan director Wayne Wang (The Joy Luck Club, Chinese Box, Maid in Manhattan) knows this all too well. With The Joy Luck Club, his emotionally wrenching 1993 adaptation of Amy Tan's novel, he achieved the breakthrough success which catapulted his name into the Hollywood mainstream.

But the laid-back San Francisco-based director admits that the reaction to his version of Lisa See's best-selling novel Snow Flower and the Secret Fan has been mixed for one major reason - fans of the novel, set in 19th-century China, were jolted by the inclusion of a parallel narrative set in modern-day Shanghai.

"Some people who loved the book couldn't understand why the modern element had been added but I had my reasons and, hopefully, they become clear throughout the film," Wang said.

The novel tells the story of Lily and Snow Flower, two girls with very different upbringings - one poor, one wealthy - who become laotongs (lifelong female friends) through the trials and agonies of foot-binding, marriage, childbirth, loss of loved ones and reversals of fortune.

"I immediately saw the novel as a film because I loved the theme of this deep commitment to a friendship that actually takes the form of an agreement on paper," Wang added.

"That idea doesn't really exist anymore. We may have a lot of 'Facebook friends' but we hardly know most of them. You might show them pictures of where you went out for dinner but you don't have that truly committed relationship where you tell each other your deepest secrets and insecurities."

It was this connection between the rituals of an ancient past and the social disconnectedness of the present that gave Wang the idea to add a modern element to the story.

In the contemporary narrative, Lily's descendant is Nina (Li Bing Bing plays Nina and Lily), a successful professional contemplating a move from Shanghai to New York. Snow Flower's descendant is Sophie (Gianna Jun as both women), a reckless beauty who falls in love with an Australian nightclub owner (Hugh Jackman).

"On the surface, in America and increasingly in China, women seem to have a lot of freedom but, at the same time, there is still this longing for love, for close friendship," Wang said.

"These are desires that are universal and transcend specific time periods."

Equally, Wang said that he wanted to make a point about the overwhelming and tumultuous changes that China had undergone in the past decade. In their rush towards American-style capitalism, Wang suggested, young Chinese people had started to forget about the traditions of the past.

"One of the voiceovers towards the end of the film basically says, 'everything changes but the only things that last are the stories from our past'," Wang said.

"I shouldn't make a blanket statement but I find that young Chinese people have maybe forgotten about the past - especially the generation that grew up in the 1980s after the Cultural Revolution had dissociated an entire society from their ancient history."

While the 19th-century scenes were filmed on a specially constructed set, the contemporary scenes were filmed in the heart of Shanghai. Though Wang has filmed frequently amid the hustle and bustle of Hong Kong, Snow Flower was his first extended experience of filming among the almost science fiction-like metropolis of Shanghai.

"Shanghai is very similar to Hong Kong, but even more chaotic," Wang laughed. "It's a hard place to film, actually. You can't go out with big trucks and lots of cars or equipment or people - you just have to do it very quietly. We just took a small van with our actresses pre-made up and almost 'stole' the shots, because it's so hard to get around the traffic and the people."

Wang laughed when I congratulated him on his ability to look deeply into the emotional worlds of women, whether that be the relationship between mothers and daughters in The Joy Luck Club or between siblings and best friends in Snow Flower and the Secret Fan.

He acknowledged that these two films were like companion pieces, similar in tone and emotional impact despite being made more than 15 years apart.

"I don't know if I'm particularly drawn to stories about women but I grew up very close to my grandmother and our family's maid, and I guess in some way I understood my mother's feelings within the family dynamic much more than my father, who was a very typical, severe Chinese patriarch," Wang said.

"In the Chinese culture, there is still a strong belief in the yin and yang in every person and I do feel like I am in touch with the yin side of myself. When these stories come up, whether it's Lisa See's book or Amy Tan's, I feel that I can get in touch with some of those emotions."

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