Review of "Les Filles du Botaniste" (The Botanist's Daughters)

A great film. Cinematography is just so great it takes you deep into the story. It seems you are in the garden. It seems that you are there witnessing the love that blooms between An & Li Ming together with the life in nature. Every scene and every line that was said is just infused with passion.

I am simply blown away by this film. It may have ended sadly but it makes you think and makes you ask questions, which hopefully should drive you to turn the tables. Most importantly, it's the journey of the story that makes this film classically beautiful. So maybe it's not so sad after all...

-MJ

smile. i just slept with your girlfriend :)

It's like Brokeback Mountain, only I didn't find it boring and dragging.

It was just incredibly sad and beautiful. I was crying at the end. This, I think, is the first lesbian film that made me cry (cause FGT is technically not a lesbian film). I was left a little angry in the end as well. Why must people be condemned and persecuted for falling in love?

The film is just so beautiful and when the music came on I became even more attatched to the scene and I could not stop watching.
I liked the interraction/bond between the two girls it was so cute and endearing (and it makes me want Mylene Jampanoi but she's married and heterosexual...).
This movie is definitely a must watch! And though the ending is sad, they basically got their wish =')

I agree with Girly.. it really is like a lesbian brokeback mountain. The cinematography was great, and the atmosphere of the film was amazing.

I was crying in the end too. It was hard not to.

I thought Mylene was dubbed in this film, but she actually learnt all her lines phonetically. THa's really amazing, because she sounded like a true mainlander with a Beijing accent.

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 feeling all alone with star crossed bad luck, Li Min seemed so sweet without instilling bitterness in her 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 wemen 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