The Chinese Botanist's Daughters (Les Filles du botaniste) poster & wallpaper

Ling Dong Fu, Mylène Jampanoï, Nguyen Van Quang

In eighties China, not all taboos were lifted. Min, a young orphan, sets off to study with a renowned botanist. A secretive man and authoritarian father, this teacher lives on an island transformed in...( read more  read more... )to a luxurious garden. Obliged to share this solitary and withdrawn life, his daughter, An, is delighted by Win's arrival on the island. The two girls quickly form a bond, only to see their friendship develop into a disturbing, sensual, and forbidden attraction. The idea of separation is impossible; Min and An soon concoct a dangerous arrangement that will allow them to continue to live under the same roof.

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70% liked it

798 ratings

Unrated, 1 hr. 45 min.

Directed by: Sijie Dai

Release Date: April 26, 2006

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Stats: 86 reviews

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Flixster Reviews (86)

  • g0disd3ad
    June 29, 2007
    g0disd3ad
    This wasn't a bad movie, but it wasn't good either. It was really beautiful visually, but the story didn't make it for me. It made me think about Brockeback Mountain, only shorter and it's with girls...
    Seriously, if the movie was made on a longer "journey", it would've been real...( read more)ly good, but marrying a guy after 5 days, and wanting to be with a girl for the rest of your life after a month beeing with her.. no, well, definitively no, for me at least... but the girl playing Ann, or something like that is really hot :)
  • InaHH
    June 29, 2007
    InaHH
    Visually simply amazing and wonderfully subtle, the tension between the two women is sensual, palpable, poetic even. This film could be watched without any sound at all and be understood just through its visuals. The longing looks, the lingering of the camera on the skin, the ama...( read more)zing scenery... Very powerful film.
  • jkujp
    July 20, 2009
    jkujp
    I was deeply heart-broken with sudden apathetic ending, Lamenting what the local authority has done to the two lovely young human beings. For a child began the life finding herself all alone with star crossed bad luck, Li Min seemed so sweet without instilling bitterness in her ...( read more)personality, She has also began developing sense of being a good member of community and respect for virtue of hard working. What else could you ask for a child who have survived through such a catastrophic disaster? Being a sole survivor escaped from such a catastrophic earthquake that killed a quarter million people and found herself all alone at daybreak on 4 a.m., July 28, 1976. She has grown to be a lovable young adult without a mean twist in her personality. Her preference seeking a female companion was really a negligible issue in the modern world. Love relationship between women has been accepted practice in the both Western and Eastern Imperial Courts amongst high ranking Court Ladies in Waiting (Japan in particular). The two girls deserve every rights to be happy with the person she loves.

    Someone like Li Min who had qualified government assisted internship, she could also have looked into training in medical field such as nurse or pharmacist An Chen would have easily qualified her for all kind of public funded academic programmes for her father being a famous professor of herbal medicine at the Medical Department of Kumming University.

    The two girls had potential to be successful lifetime companionship with a respectable socio-economic standing.. All needed was an open-minded love with a sense of altruistic insight in Professor Chen. Once they are trained as nurse or pharmacist. they could have worked and lived anywhere in the world. What a waste of two precious young lives! It was the fault of close-minded community incapable for thinking of letting them attaining skills to survive except use them as maid servants. It is a social crime to undermine woman's ability in this manner.
    If the society continues to label and hold down Li Min and An Chen unemployable, such socio-economic loss can become global loss

    An exceptionally lovely persona of Li Min played by Mylène Jampanoï makes it so hard not learning to love her. 19 Century librettist Honore de Balzac stated that "AWoman's beauty is a priceless treasure" The statement aptly applies to her in every aspects. Since I read and speak Chinese and French, Opening statement by Li Min alone regarding the death of her parents shed my tears. It was much more so painful to listen to her reading the last letter sent to the head mistress of orphanage "put our ash on the surface of the lake by the temple so that we can stay in peace" What a merciless world is it? It made me so sad that I could not listen to the very end. It really broke my heart to acknowledge that they are no longer together in this world.
  • 5oclockcoffee
    June 28, 2009
    5oclockcoffee
    Not bad, but not that good. It has a stunning, sensual and (at the same time) simple visual beauty, but the storyline is kinda predictable and cheesy.
  • jerbstaciezaher
    May 5, 2009
    jerbstaciezaher
    ive seen the trailer and ive seen that this is a lesbian love story...

    li ming and an are so inlove with each other
    even though their love are
    not in the law of God and the country, they still not stop loving each other....

    they are so cute...
    they're just like sisters....( read more)..

    im so sad at the ending of this movie...
    they've sentenced to death
    i love mylene jampanoi so much!
  • SamSky
    October 3, 2008
    SamSky
    what a story, man....














    toooooo damm gud
  • JulienB
    June 12, 2008
    JulienB
    Magnifique film... très bien réalisé! J'ai adoré!!
  • carlosnatalio1
    May 12, 2008
    carlosnatalio1
    Medicina natural, relação mestre/aprendiz, amor proibido. O que é que estas três realidades têm em comum? Aparentemente nada. Mas se pensarmos bem, estamos perante três universos ficcionais bem velhinhos, a que o cinema oriental, sobretudo o destinado a consumo ocidental, recorre...( read more). São precisamente estes os pilares de `Les Filles du Botaniste`, quinta obra do cineasta, ou devo dizer, sobretudo escritor, o chinês residente em França, Sijie Dai.
    `Xiao cai feng` (título inglês, `Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress`) é o nome do seu penúltimo filme, adaptação do seu primeiro romance do mesmo nome e talvez a sua obra de maior sucesso. Tendo chegado a ser nomeado para o Globo de Ouro para melhor filme estrangeiro, acompanhava a história de dois estudantes, durante a revolução cultural da China dos anos 70, que são enviados para uma montanha isolada, para, pelo trabalho e privações, serem expurgados da maldição da influência da cultura ocidental.
    Quatro anos volvidos manteve-se o ambiente conservador que rodeia o par protagonista, sendo que desta vez o cerne da questão é uma relação lésbica. Esmiuçando: Li Min (a sino francesa Mylene Jampanoi, que conhecemos do remake de Clouzout `36 Quai des Orfèvres` ) é órfã e começa por sair do orfanato onde foi criada desde criança para ir aprofundar as artes da botânica junto do famoso professor Chen (Dongfu Lin). E se há coisa que sabemos é que os mestres orientais são super atentos e caprichosos na relação com os seus alunos, não lhe perdoando qualquer falta. Este não falta à regra, e na sua obsessão com a disciplina e rigor, vai fazendo a vida difícil à pobre Li e à própria filha Cheng Na. Estas naturalmente vão apaixonar-se (talvez mais por cumplicidade de situações semelhantes que por outra coisa) pondo em cheque o equilíbrio daquele local paradisíaco e das suas milenares e intocáveis relações.
    Este `Les Filles du Botaniste` é aborrecido. Há que dizê-lo. E não porque não tenha actores com talento, não porque não tenha um argumento apesar de tudo interessante. O problema é que o ponto de vista do autor não descola de um romance langoroso de cordel, movendo-se sempre em territórios paralelos face ao que realmente interessa àquela `gente`: o que por exemplo uniu aquelas mulheres, a natureza da relação do pai com as suas `filhas` ou o substrato cultural vivido na China que via a homossexualidade como uma doença. Ao invés, filma-se sempre para o bonito, com um universo pastoso e clichético. Exemplos: as intermináveis massagens na estufa, sob vapores medicinais, corpos debilmente eroticizados, para tal cobertos de água, lama ou leite, o pássaro preso na gaiola, as metáforas bolorentas como o ginseg e a sua alma, ou os pombos libertados para a realização do desejo mil vezes expressas, e outras tantas vezes inconcretizável, de poderem ficar juntas para sempre.
    Quase sempre órfão de ideias originais, é uma obra que nunca chega a arrancar. Sempre anódino, nunca escalpeliza instituições, nunca, na sua vertente por vezes documental e mostradora, investe na ambiguidade e na intriga.
    A esta obra que se vê de uma relance como um romance numa viagem Lisboa/Porto, falta a força sexual de `L?amant` de Annaud, a maturidade de `Brokeback Mountain` de Ang Lee, ou a pureza e minimalismo de `Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter... and Spring`, de Kim Ki Duk.

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