◎Wang Kai
Wulin is a river and lake, and shopping malls are like Wulin, also a river and lake. Therefore, "Flowers" is definitely not a business war series. The emotional stories in the world are Wong Kar-wai's love and hate. I don't know why so many people miss it and insist that "Flowers" belongs to Anai's reform and opening up series.
is still the familiar Wong Kar-Wai
who speaks actively before he understands it. This is probably a common problem in the social media era. When I started watching "Flowers", I was often confused by the dazzling business storyline. The screenwriter Qin Wen is the screenwriter of the previously hit "The First Half of My Life" and a celebrity in the industry. "The First Half of My Life" was also criticized when it was first released, mainly because it was not consistent with the original work. But it is conceivable that the distance between the original work and the series is the credit of the screenwriter, not a shortcoming. If "The First Half of My Life" were filmed according to Yi Shu's original work, it would basically end in three episodes, and Hong Kong in the 1980s could not be copied to Shanghai 30 years later. So the critic's perspective and the screenwriter's perspective are two different worlds.
Although the adaptation of "The First Half of My Life" was criticized, it actually did not affect the ratings. There must be a reason for Wong Kar-wai to find Qin Wen. A layman doesn't understand it, but looking at the results, it seems very reasonable at the moment. Wong Kar-Wai always likes to use other people's wine glasses to pour his own wine. In the middle of "Flowers", countless characters from Wong Kar-Wai's films are brought back to life, and specious afterimages of the past are constantly appearing on the screen. Su Lizhen and Zhou Mowan have changed their identities and appear in a trance in the series. Qin Wen helped Wong Kar-wai fulfill this wish: the adaptation of "Flowers" is also far from the original work. The deletion of large sections of
is understandable. The main characters, things that happened in special historical eras, including the revolving branch characters, can only be cut off. But I didn’t expect that Wong Kar-wai and Qin Wen would start anew and build high-rise buildings on the ground, insisting on describing the economic history of Shanghai in the 1980s and 1990s: the changes of the Shanghai Stock Exchange, the rise and fall of Yellow River Road, the vitality of Nanjing Road, including the ups and downs of foreign trade. , a lot of shots and plots are explained here. Qin Wen has done a lot of homework, and I have to say that many people think this drama is a business war drama, which makes sense.
But wait, after watching more than a dozen episodes, especially the first ten, Po, who seemed like a boss, began to show embarrassment. Miss Wang, who was having a smooth sailing, was sent to the dock, and Lingzi, who was flirting with Po, ran away sadly. The mysterious past of Li Li on Huanghe Road has not yet come to light. The plot of the business war film begins to fall apart, and the Wong Kar-Wai we are familiar with begins to show signs. Especially when Abao's first love Xuezhi appears, a huge hot pot cooks the rare happiness that is not easy to obtain in the heavy snow. Dujuan was wearing the most fashionable dark green cotton-padded jacket of that era, and was apparently on a daily date with Abao. But in this kind of date, the sorrow of separation has been doomed for a long time, and he can only see half of her face. In the lively warm light, Xuezhi still has an elusive and unattainable color - her true nature is to be at a distance. As expected, Xuezhi married a Hong Konger not long after, which was the active choice of some Shanghai women at that time. Abao's love is dead. Over the years, this love will still linger around.
is still Wong Kar-wai's favorite
Shanghai Caojiadu in 1979 is carefully presented, with crowded buses, a station full of people, conductors knocking on the door, bus flowers wearing red scarves, restaurants that are about to be squeezed out of the door, hot air The faces of everyone inside were blurry. When I saw this, I immediately understood where the business war was and where the fiery 1990s were. These were just prosperous backgrounds - just like the Foshan Golden Tower where Gong Er and Ip Man first met. The deliberately built scenery, in the final analysis , is about the emotional entanglement between men and women in the secular world. Wong Kar-Wai has moved the characters he is familiar with to another time and space. No matter how turbulent the background is and how rolling the world is, what he carefully handles is still the story of his favorite legless bird. Abao is Ah Fei, he is Chow Mu-yun, and he is Ip Man who wanted to go north and finally let go. No matter how great the world outside the window is, he will still be a lonely silhouette under the bed.
chose the Peace Hotel as the imaginary Abao base. I think it is mostly because of the old elevator, the light and dark light and shadow, and the leisurely appearance of Hu Ge's face that was about to say something. This is really the core image of the series "Flowers." No matter how the world changes, the loneliness of a man full of worries is the true face of "Flowers". Those splendid women who bloomed like flowers have left his world. What a Wong Kar-wai story.
"Flowers" is Wong Kar-wai's dream of Shanghai and the difficult awakening of the city where he spent his childhood in the 1990s. He used this huge wine glass to fill a glass of old champagne with a sour aroma. Abao is his Jia Baoyu, and Shanghai is his illusion, from which he will eventually wake up. But at this moment, one must go through some disillusionment.
is still a Wong Kar-wai style idle work
Wong Kar-Wai not only shot the love story of the protagonist Po in an ambiguous and heart-stirring way, but also made the colorful side characters, such as the hotel proprietress on the Yellow River Road, in rich tones. The most outstanding one is Jin Meilin played by Fan Tiantian. The proprietress Lu Meilin. I have always felt that there is no polyphony in this person, he is just a man of violence and ruthlessness. As a result, her plaintive wails during a farce with Li Li enriched the character.
Her former lover and underworld leader Du Honggen came to seek revenge on Li Li for her. He acted like a white-faced man and talked about morality, but he was already the one who owed a huge sum of money. The false face could not be maintained at all, so he could only run away in despair. Before escaping, he still pretended to be the boss over Lu Meilin, but his underlying weakness was quickly recognized. Lu Meilin, who has always been competitive all her life, can only cry out - because of his incompetence, and even more of her daily grievances: her gambling husband (Dai Jun is quite vivid when he shows his face), and his declining business. Her howling is a burst of acting skills, and Wong Kar-wai's idle writing can make the actress happy.
It is still a typical Wong Kar-wai style relationship
not to mention the major transformation of the acting skills of several heroines. The first is to choose the right venue. Shanghai is a very materialistic city. Underneath its grand history are the citizens’ surging material desires, daily consumption, and secular life. Huanghe Road and Nanjing Road are the stage for food and clothing in the material world. As a director, you must consider the concentration of the field - the choice of these two scenes is too accurate. The selection of a large number of documentary-style images deepens the sense of time and makes these two scenes that can represent that era of Shanghai come alive. Be fragrant - women coming and going start their daily lives here, struggling and struggling, lingering and despair.
Li Li, played by Xin Zhilei, has a mysterious origin in the original work: a woman who stands out from the crowd, has a troubled past, and is strong on the surface to cover up the fragility in her bones. The dolls in the room give her a ghostly aura. She was once trafficked, The experience of being deceived made her extra vigilant. Xin Zhilei in the series has not yet revealed her sense of tragedy, but only emphasized her complexity and tenacity: she is almost a female boss in the business world, but at her core, she is still similar to the mysterious black-dressed beauty in the casino that often appeared in Wong Kar-wai's past movies - Gong Li is The spokesperson always shows an unpredictable expression. There is a scene in the series where Li Li hugs a strange man with tears in her eyes and reveals a little about her past, which makes us look forward to the subsequent expressions of the characters. Outside the
series, the actor said in an interview that Wong Kar-wai asked Xin Zhilei to learn dance for a long time and undergo body transformation. In this drama, Xin Zhilei learned to use her body to act, and she always walked on the streets in a charming manner. What impressed me most was when A Bao sent her home: the camera shot from the air, and under the dense wires like a spider web, there were two handsome men and beautiful women with their own thoughts; temptation and fighting were the melody on their faces; the skin was opened to reveal Li Zi, or the attraction between the sexes. Abao's so-called use of 300,000 yuan to test her true identity is essentially to protect and love the bullied women. He is a passionate seed, with love on the one hand and fear of deep love on the other. The two are still entangled - but the emotional climax at the end of the series must be between them.Another example of
using body performance is Lingzi played by Ma Yili. The scene in Tokyo at Night has also become the climax of the series and many people like it. "Shijing" is a basic evaluation, but Shijing is really inaccurate. Wong Kar-Wai still films men and women, entanglements, and sensuality, but this drama handles all relationships between men and women into abbreviated scripts. A Bao and Reiko were fighting and fighting in Tokyo at night, but there was a complicated relationship hidden behind them. Obviously, Po and Lingzi are mature, secular men and women, and many of their scenes have a familiar and flowing routine. The two people have a relationship, but this relationship is definitely not friendship. Wong Kar-Wai borrowed the shooting method of the great director Lubitsch, replacing real shots with metaphors, using scenes of mundane life to show the vitality of the actual relationship between the two. For example, going to Zhujiajiao early in the morning to eat wontons, the two fighting for the box where Reiko hid her jewelry, and Reiko enthusiastically extracting money. She, who was jokingly called a "debt collector" by her uncle, wanted more than money. It was A Bao; the two of them met in Weishi and had a deep understanding of each other, but neither of them broke this layer of paper. In the end, Po should have failed Lingzi, another typical Wong Kar-Wai relationship.
Ma Yili's role is a bit similar to the dancer played by Carina Lau in "Days of Being Wild". Underneath her liveliness, there is a heart longing for love.
Audiences who say that Wong Kar-Wai can only do ambiguous scenes probably have not seen "2046". The erotic men and women in it almost make the bed collapse, not to mention the bold eroticism and lustrous flesh in his past films. It has always been Wong Kar-wai's. chef's special.
is also a Wong Kar-Wai-style male protagonist.
's most successful female portrayal is Miss Wang played by Tang Yan. This character was basically created, but instead he was bold and passionate, walking around in red and being very lively - probably the most unforgettable role in Tang Yan's film and television career so far. Some people always say that Wong Kar-Wai makes actresses look beautiful. In fact, beauty is not about following fashion, but shaping it in a different way. Miss Wang under the camera is very lively and cute. Abao repeatedly explained to her that the relationship between the two was a "revolutionary friendship", but in fact it was also an unclear definition. Sure enough, when she asked for further information, Abao backed down. This kind of withdrawal is the instinct of Wong Kar-Wai's male protagonist, and Po's passion and ruthlessness are closely connected.
In today's TV series, it is difficult to see a male protagonist like Ah Fei. Frankly said to the women who are chasing him, I can't be with anyone - Ah Bao's desire to talk is still there, inheriting Ah Fei's temperament, That night, we were supposed to go to a pork ribs and rice cake shop to meet up, but Abao spent the whole night at the wine table, talking so much that he couldn't stop talking. The Po played by Hu Ge is not as suave as Fei, nor as bold and lustful as Chow Mo-Wan, but he also has his own loneliness in the dark night, which is unique among Wong Kar-Wai's series of characters.
Still Wong Kar-Wai's charm
Only half of the series has been aired, so we really can't judge whether the entire "Flowers" is a success or not. However, as far as the current perception is concerned, Wong Kar-wai belongs to the category of "Dojo in a snail shell" - the dramas that have been carefully crafted for so many years have not lost their old charm; the characters in his Hong Kong movies are in the parallel world. In the scene of Shanghai in the 1990s, Youyouran is alive again and continues to stage the drama of men and women in the glitzy world.
From this point of view, Wong Kar-wai has captured some of the profound meaning in the original work "Flowers". It is probably the existence of this meaning that made the original author Jin Yucheng also express his approval. In fact, a good novel adaptation does not depend on whether the changes are major or whether the characters remain unchanged, but on whether the original author and the adapter can communicate with each other - Wong Kar-wai basically did it. It is worthy of the audience that such a series can come out.
Source: Beijing Youth Daily
