Audience Member
stank from a mile away, major cringe-sville from the stilted dialogue to the acting and them 'love scenes'.
the french actress is quite ooh la la , oui, but she couldn't act for nuts, at least it didn't look like it here.
if you thought this was beautiful, sensual blah blah blah, chances are, you're the intended white audience this was meant for.
Rated 1.5/5 Stars •
Rated 1.5 out of 5 stars
01/19/23
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Audience Member
2.5: Having actually floated down the incomprehensibly beautiful rivers depicted in the opening scene of the film definitely makes it a much richer and more meaningful experience. However, that was in Vietnam, whereas this story is supposed to be set in China. This made it a little difficult for me to keep things straight. This environment seem like something out of a fairy tale and it is a bit hard to believe that my version of it is on YouTube. Of course, my version of Tam Doc doesn't have quite the same picturesque fog, but my pictures of Halong Bay certainly do. Hell, I could have ridden in the same boats the characters rode in over the course of the film. Practically each rice paddy, each river bank, and each cave were intimately familiar, and that's because they were: I literally knew exactly where the characters were for much of the film. This intimacy makes films like this, which I picked up from a street vendor in Hanoi, that much more enjoyable and meaningful. Having actually been to the place in question and had a taste of the experiences depicted in the film makes it much easier to relate to, even if it is supposed to be China. It isn't exactly a happy picture, but one can't expect a lesbian love story set in Communist China to turn out well. There are certainly many places in the world far worse than the United States when it comes to the treatment of homosexuals (only crazy people kill them here, whereas the government sanctions it there).
Rated 2.5/5 Stars •
Rated 2.5 out of 5 stars
02/14/23
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Audience Member
It has been a while that a movie made me shed tears :O... This movie had such a beautiful storyline and it was so touching.. Sniffs.. The movie visually beautiful and amazing. The scenery is amazing.. God okay it's going to be a new fave movie..
Rated 4/5 Stars •
Rated 4 out of 5 stars
02/03/23
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Rated 3/5 Stars •
Rated 3 out of 5 stars
02/19/23
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Audience Member
There has to be a million movies made which ask us to sit through watching some man be a complete asshole so that we can witness the long suffering of the women around him. Often there is a subtext or symbolic undercurrent that the characters and their relationships are meant to represent. This is one such movie.
The asshole in this film is the Chinese botanist and he represents a tyrannical and repressive society. He makes ancient herbal remedies in a botanical paradise he has constructed on an island that is supposed to be somewhere in Yunnan Province, China. The long suffering woman in the film is his twenty year old daughter. She waits on him hand and foot. She cuts his toenails. She represents all that is good and new and wonderful yet shackled in the modern world.
The film has good intentions and attempts to expose some of the lingering absurdities of Chinese traditional values in general and those of the Cultural Revolution in particular. One day another young woman arrives on the island to intern with the botanist. She brings a talking bird that squawks "Long live Chairman Mao" all the time. The two women fall in love, the father sees this forbidden love in the flesh and dies of a heart attack. The two young women are put to death for the crime of the disease of homosexuality that caused the death of a prized botanist.
The director wants to make a point of how fucked up the situation is but he takes it to a ridiculous extreme, much like the film's soundtrack of crescendoing choruses and violins. It's too bad because the film has a strong and very sensual visual appeal. As mentioned, the film's location is supposed to be somewhere in Yunnan, one of the most beautiful places in the world, but because of the homosexual content Chinese authorities prohibited the director from filming there. The irony! So it's filmed in Vietnam where it's green and lush and dripping wet. If all the scenes of the father being an idiot were removed The Chinese Botanist's Daughters would be a gorgeous film.
Sijie Dai, the film's writer and director, was sent to a reeducation camp as a young man during the Cultural Revolution. He's clearly exorcising demons and I would like to applaud his efforts but while the theme of The Chinese Botanist's Daughters is worthwhile the particulars are schmaltzy, unpleasant, and far too melodramatic. Dai's earlier film Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress is a much better film dealing with the Cultural Revolution.
Mylène Jampanoï, who stars as the woman with the talking bird, went on to star in the French extreme horror film Martyrs.
Rated 2.5/5 Stars •
Rated 2.5 out of 5 stars
01/19/23
Full Review
Audience Member
There has to be a million movies made which ask us to sit through watching some man be a complete asshole so that we can witness the long suffering of the women around him. Often there is a subtext or symbolic undercurrent that the characters and their relationships are meant to represent. This is one such movie.
The film has good intentions and attempts to expose some of the lingering absurdities of traditional values in general and those of the Cultural Revolution in particular. The director wants to make a point of how fucked up the situation is but he takes it to a ridiculous extreme. Sort of like the film's soundtrack of crescendoing choruses and violins. I would like to applaud his efforts but while the theme of The Chinese Botanist's Daughter is worthwhile the particulars are schmaltzy, unpleasant, and far too melodramatic.
more:
<a href='http://sitenoise-atthemovies.blogspot.com/2010/07/chinese-botanists-daughter-les-filles.html' target='_blank'>sitenoise at the movies: The Chinese Botanist's Daughter</a>
Rated 2/5 Stars •
Rated 2 out of 5 stars
02/10/23
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