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Snow Flower and the Secret Fan (2011)

The Movie: Snow Flower and the Secret Fan (2011)
The Location: Shanghai, China

Wendi Deng Murdoch is the unintentional star of the phone-hacking hearings since she jumped forward late last week to smack a pink-clad arm at a protester aiming a pie at Rupert Murdoch's face. Deng has been dubbed the original crouching tiger but it is her own just-released movie which might get the most mileage out of the incident. Deng co-produced, Snow Flower and the Secret Fan, starring Li Bingbing and Gianna Jun, with a cameo role from Australia's Hugh Jackman.The Chinese epic is based on Lisa See's best-selling book. The Luxury Travel Bible went on location to find out exactly where the film was shot, what the stars did and if Wendi Deng strong-armed anyone else during the making of the movie.

Straddling early-19th-century China and modern Shanghai, Snow Flower and the Secret Fan is directed by Wayne Wang (who also directed The Joy Luck Club). The film tells the story of two sets of women that share a deep bond, a love known in old Chinese culture as 'laotong'.

Deng Murdoch made the movie with fellow first-time producer, Florence Sloan. "Being good friends and both of Chinese ancestry, we decided we should make a movie out of this beautiful book," she said. Adapted from the bestselling 2005 Lisa See novel, the film diverges from the book by adding a 21st century cast of characters. Much of the modern part of the movie was shot on location in Shanghai one of China's fastest moving cities.

Witness the speed the Maglev train from Pudong airport whips you into the city at a top speed of 434 kilometres an hour; so fast the country outside your window is a blur as if Vaseline has been smeared across the glass. It's a fitting way to get to Shanghai, a city that is changing so fast its residents must feel as if they're permanently riding the supercharged track. Not so long ago the district the train shoots through would have been rice paddies, now there is a concrete jungle instead with tower blocks reaching for the sky.

At the end of last June 2011 another high speed train, the new Beijing-Shanghai express was unveiled with fully reclining airline-style business class seats, so the Shanghaiese can go faster in more comfort.

In an attempt to connect the two stories in the film Li Bingbing and Gianna Jun, play both sets of women. In the modern half of the story the actresses play Nina and Sophia Shanghai sophisticates who would not be out of place in any one of the city's blossoming night spots.

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