Text | "Chinese Entrepreneur" reporter Tao Tao
editor | Li Wei
header image source | Visual China
Wong Kar-wai has captured the extreme pull of men and women in most movies:
Yuxiang, Chow Mo-wan and Su Lizhen in "In the Mood for Love" Staring at each other, emotions surge under the calmness; in
"Chungking Express", A Fei's daydreams and policeman 663's ravings at home are the two people's respective loneliness;
in "Ashes of Time", the sadness, indifference, In the silence, it no longer seems to matter who speaks and who listens.
Wong Kar-Wai's first TV series "Flowers" ended tonight. The "accent" (which means taste in Shanghainese) is still there, but the story is much more straightforward.
"Flowers" has an American drama-style opening: all the characters appear in the first two episodes, the words are fast and the information is dense, and the era of the 1980s and 1990s unfolds:
In Shanghai in the late 1980s, young Ah Bao apprenticed to his uncle, who had experienced ups and downs in the business world, and earned his first pot of gold in the stock market. The story quickly advanced to many years later, when A Bao became Mr. Bao and was framed for a car accident. The camera quickly cut to the different faces of all kinds of businessmen on the Yellow River Road in Shanghai: those who were looking forward to his early death, those who were worried that he could not be saved. Those who pay off debts and those who join in the fun, with just a few words, the biographies of the characters immediately come alive.
"Flowers" not only presents the audience with a story of gluttonous business wars at a fast pace, but also has several Stephen Chow-like appetizers, which is also very un-Wong Kar-Wai. It wasn't until the audience saw the montage-style memories of Mr. Bao and his first girlfriend in the middle of the episode that they felt that Wong Kar-wai, who was good at capturing the ambiguous feelings between men and women, was finally back.
In the Mao Dun Literature Award-winning work "Flowers", the word that appears most frequently is "not ringing", which appears more than 1,000 times in the author Jin Yucheng's book. "Silent" not only refers to "silence", but also represents a low-key speech and the blank space of Eastern people.
Many people say that the drama "Flowers" became a hit because it accurately reproduced the Shanghai-style culture at the end of the last century, or because "Flowers" presented the turbulent business war.
However, compared to these, perhaps what really makes this series break through the circle is that perfectly combines the "silent" aesthetics of Wong Kar-Wai and Jin Yucheng. also has other features that are different from movies and TV series. The "loud" art.
"无声"
The typical Shanghainese word "无声" is the Shanghai people's philosophy of life.
Jin Yucheng once publicly stated that 's "silence" refers to "knowing it, keeping silent, and watching the fire from the other side." The charm of his "Flowers" mostly comes from this "silence": the ambiguity between men and women, the endless chatting between ordinary people in Shanghai, and the secret wrestling between opponents in business wars. For example, this excerpt from "Flowers":
"Four people sat silently on the stone railing, the clouds were calming and the wind was calm, and the moon was shining in the dawn sky. They talked and talked, and the wonderful thoughts were everywhere. The mountain trees in the garden The layers are still dark, the outlines are blurred, and no details can be seen, but the long row of pink walls gradually changes grayscale, and slowly turns white with the change of skylight. At the twilight moment, there are faint sounds all around, contained in The subtle sound of the bird's throat seems to be there and not at all, it seems to be singing but not singing."
is projected into Wong Kar-Wai's dramas, which are always good at leaving blank spaces. 's "silence" is also one of the souls of the TV series "Flowers". Wong Kar-wai dedicated most of the "silence" in "Flowers" to the love between men and women that he is most familiar with. Episodes 13 and 14 of
are the two episodes in "Flowers" that are considered "most like Wong Kar-wai". When Abao recalled his love story with his first girlfriend Xuezhi, familiar montage shots flashed. Abao was now lonely. The two secretly fell in love on the bus. The lightness in the few fake collision movements pulled the onlookers away. of infinite reverie.
Later, before Xuezhi married in Hong Kong, Po separated from her in Shanghai. Several large-aperture lenses, hazy backgrounds and detailed expressions magnified the mixed expressions of the two. The background music is "Stealing Heart" by Jacky Cheung.Wong Kar-Wai's bad ending (tragedy) was staged so familiarly.
In addition to Xuezhi, the ambiguous feelings between Mr. Bao and the three heroines are also expressed silently. A full bow is easy to break, a tight string is easy to break. Wong Kar-Wai's philosophy of love images, he is well aware of this principle. Words cannot be said clearly, and love cannot be explained. This is why has such classic characters such as Chow Mo-wan, Jane, and Ah Fei, and now it has added Po, Lingzi, and Miss Wang. et al.
The "silence" in the original work "Flowers" is not only used in love, but also in the business world. In the TV series, Wong Kar-wai also appropriately demonstrated the ruthlessness of business wars.
When Mr. Bao and several colleagues exchanged inside information at the Qilin Club where business tycoons gathered, they were low-key, vigilant, and focused on "not making a sound." When Mr. Qiang left Mr. Bao the wrong information password in the trash can at the hotel, the two started a secret fight. The two had fought several times before they met.
On the Yellow River Road, in the Red Heron Restaurant and the Zhizhen Garden newly opened by the proprietress Li Li, the foreign trade order competition between Mr. Fan, Mr. Wei and Mr. Bao can be seen in the eyes of Li Li and Mr. Bao watching the fire from across the street. Li Li's unfathomable gaze in the black backless suit, and Mr. Bao's calm look in the straight suit can actually make people think about the undercurrents beneath the calm.
"Loud"
Wong Kar-wai left a lot of blank space in "Flowers", but he did not go "silent" everywhere. If movies are an art that can be completely "silent", then TV dramas are different.
Wong Kar-wai mentioned in his autobiography "Wong Kar-wai - More Than Making Movies": "Movies are not an art about lines and plots, but an art about behavior, because the characters' words may be lies. But TV dramas are an art An art composed of lines and plots."
breaks down Wong Kar-wai's words. Compared with TV series, sound, light and shadow are magnified on the big screen of movies, and the emotional tension is also highlighted in movies. Movies are more suitable for emotional expression. In addition, the duration of the movie is usually only about 2 hours, so the movie can be filled with emotion alone. However, the series needs a rich story to attract the audience to the end.
In the TV series "Flowers", in addition to the love between men and women, Wong Kar-wai made good use of the medium of TV series to generally tell a "loud" story.
The drama version of "Flowers" abandons the lyrical prose style that "King of Sunglasses" used throughout the works in the past, and uses a relatively sophisticated tone to tell the story of the ups and downs of the characters in Shanghai under the background of the end of the last century.
For example, at the beginning of "Flowers", Uncle Grandpa teaches A Bao how to do securities trading. The process of A Bao borrowing money is hurriedly walked through, and the teachings are intensively output in three to five minutes, such as "A VIP in the business field." Dress, not wear clothes, and have an accent. "Stock trading is like climbing the World Trade Center. It takes an hour to climb up, but it only takes 8.8 seconds to jump from the top." These sentences are accompanied by drum-like background music, and you can quickly catch it. The audience also explained the process behind Abao's transformation into Mr. Bao and the master's guidance.
There is also the story of Mr. Bao going to Zhuji alone. The camera showed a group of workers in the gray factory, holding knives and axes, forcing Mr. Xiang Bao to hand over the cash for signing the contract. When Mr. Bao refused to give cash, the breathtaking concentration of the screen made people feel that the plot turned into a suspense film. had long forgotten the operator behind this. It was the one who gave Maggie Cheung countless cheongsam figures, but was unwilling to give She is a man who kisses scenes.
In the business war, the interpretation of the supporting roles is also full of color. A group portrait of the proprietresses headed by Jin Meilin's boss Lu Meilin, the scene of the crusade against the king snake in Zhenyuan, from blocking the supply of king snakes in the seafood market, to poaching in the kitchen and destroying the production line, to swaggering and cursing into Zhenyuan. Watching the good show in the garden filled the cramped business atmosphere of Yellow River Road. Wong Kar-Wai takes the audience into the story of the unknown follow-up of the character Li Li from an omniscient perspective, cleverly filling the sense of suspense.
In addition to countless "loud" business war scenes, "The King of Sunglasses" also vividly portrays the lives of several neighbors in the Night Tokyo Tavern.
Compared with the original work, in the TV series, the number and relationships of the characters in Night Tokyo are simplified, ambiguity is weakened, and they are condensed into a small group formed by loyalty-Mr. Bao, Teacher Ge, Lingzi, Tao Tao and Ling Hong. Among them are small vendors selling seafood and small landlords collecting rent. They often get together and form the most down-to-earth group of people in "Flowers".
has cut off some side details about the relationship between men and women, and the group scenes in Tokyo at night in the play have become more tense: several friends often sit together in the evening, drink a cup of tea, have a glass of wine, or eat a bowl of rice. , you can simply chat for a long time. We chatted about the gossip on Yellow River Road, talked about the rise and fall of the stock market, teased each other, and walked away late at night. All the friendship between these neighbors is hidden under Wong Kar-wai's lens.
It is these straightforward outlines that allow "Flowers" to appropriately infuse a lot of market atmosphere in addition to the opposite-sex emotions of seeing flowers in the fog. Wong Kar-wai, who is well versed in the art of TV dramas, finally partially unveiled the emotional veil of his creation in "Flowers".
Therefore, literary and artistic youths love it, business elites love it, and ordinary audiences also love it.
Reference:
"Wong Kar-Wai - More Than Making Movies", Wong Kar-wai
