Original title: A Shanghai-style epic in the rolling world
In recent years, the Chinese TV drama industry has often presented blockbuster dramas with both weight and innovation at the end of the year and the beginning of the year, from "Mountains and Seas" to "The Age of Awakening", from "Human" From "World" to "Hurry Up", the audience gradually formed an impression and developed expectations in their subconscious mind. At the end of 2023, "Flowers" is the first major drama to accompany the audience as they bid farewell to the old and welcome the new. The show debuted on CCTV on December 27, and immediately attracted a lot of amazing applause. Tencent Video became a hit at the same time, and the popularity continued until it ended on January 9, 2024. During these ten days of blooming flowers, topics related to the work dominated social media, boosting Shanghai's cultural tourism economy and leading a wave of nostalgia.
When an Author Meets an Author: From Literature to Video
"Flowers" is Hong Kong literary director Wong Kar-wai's attempt in the field of mainland TV dramas. The play is based on the Mao Dun Literature Award-winning novel "Flowers" by writer Jin Yucheng, and co-stars Hu Ge, Ma Yili, Tang Yan, Zheng Kai and other Shanghai-based actors with high national popularity. The guest actors in the play are also full of surprises: my uncle You Benchang, who is still strong in his octogenarian years, Master Fan who calls Fan Zhiyi his idol, and even the writer Jin Yucheng himself made a surprise appearance in the introduction at the beginning of the play. He said, "I'm retired now and it's okay." The first sentence of "Wanwan" is, "Go to the attic alone, preferably at night."
Before the TV series "Flowers" met the audience, it had been polished slowly and meticulously for six years. From the start of filming to the final unveiling of the mysterious veil, it was mentioned from time to time during these six years, and it has almost become A legend in the world. Such a long production cycle not only reflects Wong Kar-wai's consistent creative attitude, but also reflects the huge challenge of adapting the original work. Writer Jin Yucheng's original novel is rooted in the Shanghainese dialect, and this dialect is closely connected with the unique way of thinking and attitude of Shanghai citizens. It is a unique cultural context that has grown solidly from the soil of Shanghai. The author once bluntly stated that the reason for "Flowers" was to pay tribute to this great city. So, can such a thick and profound story with a strong micro-individual perspective really be properly translated into images?
Fortunately, the author met the author. Jin Yucheng and Wong Kar-wai met in the long journey from text to image in "Flowers". This encounter seems to be destined. As early as the opening chapter of the original work published in 2013, Jin Yucheng cueed Wong Kar-wai's masterpiece "Days of Wild": Tony Leung is riding a horse to find a horse, the hero is old and dark, and he is counting money under the electric light. I think the writer is writing This is the atmosphere and picture that comes to mind. Between the magical city of Shanghai and the Oriental Pearl of Hong Kong, there is a tacit understanding that they are both pioneers of cosmopolitanism in China's modernization process. Although they are two cities, they have different approaches and approaches. Wong Kar-wai's lens is good at creating an ambiguous and dense atmosphere, depicting the lonely and self-centered urban soul in such an atmosphere. Now he uses this style of writing in "Flowers", which coincides with Jin Yucheng's writing style.
In terms of adaptation strategy, Jin Yucheng’s masterpiece "Flowers" is based on a vast character pedigree, and uses the tone of a storyteller to unfold the stories of ordinary people in Ukiyo-e on the sea one by one, from the 1960s to the 1990s. In addition to A Bao in the series, the male protagonists include Hu Sheng, who comes from an intellectual family, and Xiao Mao, who comes from a working class family. The TV series "Flowers" deleted the main plot of the three men, Husheng, Xiaomao and A Bao, to A Bao's line, omitting the story line of the 1960s and only using it as a memory to occasionally narrate. The large-scale business war plot is the highlight of the rewrite, which makes the scattered plots in the novel more concentrated. Each character has his own complete and enjoyable story line. The quiet and desolate texture that the writer had accumulated after the period of contemplation was boldly replaced by Wong Kar-wai with beautiful bright colors, amplifying to the extreme the gorgeous scene of flowers blooming on the Yellow River Road and fire cooking oil.
Slices of the times: men and women talk about feuds through food and drink
The TV series "Flowers" cuts out the complexities of the novel and simplifies it, which is an adaptation that captures the meaning but forgets the form. Compared with the original work, the significance of the TV series is reflected in the subtlety of the work.Neither Jin Yucheng nor Wong Kar-wai had any intention of overlooking the history of Shanghai in the 1990s from a macro perspective. They chose to weave the vicissitudes of Shanghai's old appearance into a new one secretly into the stories of parents in the streets and alleys, burying history in the intertwining scenes between characters. In the middle of a lofty talk. As a result, the majestic spirit of the wheel of history rolling forward is hidden under the appearance of a leisurely mood that makes the day disappear forever with small talk. The urban landscape and humanistic features fill the audience's vision. Wong Kar-Wai uses his characteristic image style of endless flowing halo and neon shining colors to create the passage of time and the special effect of people's self-consciousness through frame extraction. He successfully interprets the flow of Jin Yucheng's text in a delicate and microscopic way. Describing that vibrant era, the daily life and love-hate entanglements of people from all walks of life in Shanghai slowly unfolded like a long scroll.
What does it mean to be humble? "Flowers" starts from the knowledge of Shanghai people's clothing, food, housing and transportation. The food in Shanghai in the drama is impressive. The pleasure of food and sex is human nature. Wong Kar-Wai's films have always been good at using food as a medium to metaphor the human world, whether it is the tasteless wonton noodles at the farewell of an ambiguous man and woman in "In the Mood for Love", or the canned pineapples symbolizing the determination to hold on to love in "Chungking Express", The food on the table tells the story of people's regrets.
"Flowers" vividly displays the delicacies at sea, each of which refers to the character and destiny of the characters. These meaningful dishes are used to outline the souls of the characters and interpret the ups and downs of life. There is a type of food called human love rice, which carries the memory of romance and proves Mr. Bao’s emotions towards different women. The pork ribs rice cake witnessed the revolutionary friendship between Ms. Wang, an employee of the foreign trade company, and the customer Mr. Bao who started their business together; the home-cooked rice was a customized dinner carefully prepared by Lingzi, the proprietress of the Night Tokyo Bar, for Mr. Bao, the shareholder; A special dish developed by Li Weiguikebao.
In the process of getting along with each other from meal to meal, the fate of Mr. Bao and the three women are complicated and intertwined: Ms. Wang is determined to become the section chief of the textile department of the Foreign Trade Building No. 27 on the Bund, Mr. Bao spends a lot of money to create a best-selling The city's Sanyang brand woolen sweaters help Ms. Wang's dream come true; Lingzi and Mr. Bao meet by chance in a foreign country and help each other. Mr. Bao repays the kindness and rents the bar store with the first pot of gold he got from starting a business. Lingzi starts from this Say goodbye to the wandering life and return to China to become a boss lady; Li Li was taken away by the police for investigation on suspicion of manipulating the stock market. People in Zhizhen Garden were panicked and in chaos. Mr. Bao, carrying six boxes of banknotes, personally sat in the lobby to quell the dispute.
However, the characters in Wong Kar-wai's mirror always seem to be in the mood for love (the title of "In the Mood for Love", a subtle semantic meaning in English refers to the emotion of not being in love yet). Mr. Bao stopped being a diner in front of the three women. He seemed to be satisfied with this and had no intention of going further. The three women finally walked out of the ideal trajectory arranged by Mr. Bao. This growing relationship between men and women is also presented through the medium of food: Miss Wang failed to have a mutual understanding of pork ribs and rice cakes with Mr. Bao, so she gave up a decent job in the system and has since partnered with the attentive Mr. Wei. Rice and croaker noodles; Reiko smashed the bar decoration and transformed it into a kaiseki restaurant of the gang, using this to draw a clear line with Mr. Bao; Li Li remained true to his original intention and was paying off the debt for his former lover Mr. A Then he escaped into the empty door.
Another type of food is face rice. Each dish shows the undercurrent of power at a business dinner. Who said that the arena is all about fighting and killing? The lights of swords and shadows are hidden among the cups and dishes on the dinner table. This is the invisible arena. Wherever there are people, there are rivers and lakes. At the end of Wong Kar-wai's previous work "The Grandmaster", Gong Er looked at the stacks of plaques on Wuguan Street and said: At first glance, isn't this a martial arts world? The same goes for the Yellow River Road with rows of neon signs in "Flowers". Isn't the sentence "Goodbye in the world" before the end of the play not about martial arts?
When Wong Kar-wai captured the atmosphere of "Flowers", he boldly used the tone of Hong Kong martial arts films and Jianghu films of the golden era to shoot business war scenes of all sizes.These invisible wars often take place in restaurants with a strong smell of fireworks: Wei Hongqing, a fledgling young man from a wealthy family, spent more than 30,000 yuan and donated the 88-table Farewell My Concubine to Zhizhenyuan. He was defeated by Mr. Bao, but he also relied on this move to make himself, an unknown person, famous all over the world on the Yellow River Road; all the proprietresses on the Yellow River Road were jealous of the prosperous business of the Zhizhen Garden opened by the outsider Li Li, and jointly launched a battle to defend the Yellow River Road. The power outage, the shortage of ingredients, and the search for chefs forced Zhizhenyuan to find other ways to introduce Hong Kong chefs, and urgently served authentic Cantonese dishes such as Crane Needle, Ship King Fried Rice, and Flame King Snake, making it the first high-end restaurant on Huanghe Road. The dominance of Cantonese restaurants.
Food provides occasion and also provides signals. The catfish that Li Li sent to Mr. Bao became a precursor for the Shenzhen Gang to enter the Shanghai capital market, and thus kicked off the competition between salmon and catfish.
From a cultural and tourism perspective, the drama "Flowers" has undoubtedly become an excellent platform to showcase Shanghai's food culture. Fried dough sticks on chopsticks, tofu from Zhujiajiao, rice cakes from Chongming, and Dingsheng cake from Xinghualou. While the audience was excited by the ups and downs of the characters' fortunes, they also had their index fingers full and couldn't wait to travel to Shanghai for a full meal.
Silence Aesthetics: Silence and Fallen Leaves Returning to Their Roots
The word Silence appears more than a thousand times in the novel "Flowers" and has become the most eye-catching word in the book. This Shanghai-flavored word reflects the way of life of Shanghainese people. way. On the surface, silence is linguistic silence, but on the inside, it is an attitude towards life that is implicit and blank. Jin Yucheng said that being silent means being aware of something, not saying anything, and watching the fire from the other side. The TV series "Flowers" captures the silence in the novel, which means it captures the soul of the novel and allows the audience to feel the aura of Shanghai city.
The Yellow River Road does not make any noise, and it makes no noise at all. The silence in the play is not only reflected in the lingering feelings between men and women, but also in the undercurrent of business war, which ultimately leads to universal thinking about the meaning of individual existence and life.
The love in the drama is silent. Mr. Bao is comfortable in the stock market and has never been deeply involved in it; he does a lot of business, but he doesn't seem to care very much; he walks through the flowers with a gentle and elegant gentleman's attitude, but he never responds or responds to any woman around him. promise. Mr. Bao’s spiritual background is alienated from all this prosperity. From the new goldfish at the beginning to the legend of his first love Betty turning into a goldfish, the goldfish has changed from an insignificant detail to a referential image, pointing to childhood, tears , gorgeous and fleeting, Mr. Bao has since become a footless bird similar to A Fei, always flying with no place to stay.
Let’s look at the story of the business war. God is silent, as if everything is decided by me. This opening line sets the tone of the whole play's unpredictable fate and echoes the soul of the city of Shanghai. The ever-changing era breeds countless possibilities, and everyone's destiny rises and falls in the times. In the Battle of Baoying, Mr. Qiang, the representative of Nanguo Investment, and Mr. Bao, the representative of Hong Kong businessmen, competed fiercely on the capital battlefield, and the situation reversed several times. Mr. Qiang initially struck first, but gradually fell behind. Mr. Bao, who missed the opportunity, made a step-by-step plan and made a comeback. His earlier misjudgment turned out to be a blessing in disguise, as he avoided investigation by the regulatory authorities. In this war, the two sides did not face each other on the battlefield. They each live in the dark and fight remotely by making phone calls. However, the director relied on exquisite editing and scheduling to vividly express the tension and excitement of this secret war through only the emotional changes of stock investors, the beating numbers on the display screen, and the afterimage of the operator's hands typing on the keyboard.
The heart of a child is always there, but God knows if people don’t make any noise. The city of Shanghai is not only filled with all-powerful bosses, but also many citizens who come and leave without making a sound. Even if you are as smart as Mr. Bao, you will not always enjoy good luck. If you work hard in the capital market, you may fall into a bleak situation at any time, where you have too much money behind you and forget to hold back, and there is no way to turn back. In the end, Uncle Bao's vigilance made Mr. Bao decide to take a step back and stay away from this dangerous situation. Huanghe Lubao once again became Chuansha Abao, and the clothing company he invested in neither succeeded nor completely failed.The flowers came to an end, the song came to an end, and everyone dispersed. Mr. Bao washed away all the flowers, retired to plant flowers, and opened a new chapter in his life.
Outlook: The flowers will never end
There is a saying in the original work of "Flowers": It is better to ring a golden bell once than to break a thousand drums. Since the drama version of "Flowers" was aired, it has received numerous praises for being a contemporary product that has brought domestic dramas to a new level. The creator used the rolling red dust as ink, and the book is a Shanghai-style epic. Viewers have only seen many blockbuster works in the theater world at the beginning of the new year, but they do not know that high-profile dramas in recent years such as "The Age of Awakening", "The Three-Body Problem", and "The Long Season" are the results of years of hard work and careful craftsmanship by the creators.
There is a line in Wong Kar-Wai's movie "The Grandmaster" that has been widely circulated and never forgotten, and there must be repercussions. "Flowers", which has been brewing for six or seven years, is in full bloom as promised, which should boost the confidence of the industry: Nowadays, the audience's aesthetic ability has generally improved, and those who Stylized creations with aesthetic innovation can also gain both ratings and reputation in the field of TV dramas, and find a large number of close friends. No effort goes unnoticed, and when you meet a creator who works hard, the audience will value their hard work. We look forward to more blooming flowers in the future, allowing the theater world to present a grand scene of a hundred flowers blooming. (Author: Bi Jianlan, a 23-level Master of Arts in Radio and Television from the School of Drama, Film and Television, Communication University of China; Lu Jianing, an associate professor at the School of Drama, Film and Television, Communication University of China)
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