**: Entertainment.
In August 2020, the TV series "Flowers" was officially announced, with Wong Kar-wai as the producer and director, and Hu Ge starring. Then came the long wait, until today, three years later.
Before today, "Flowers" opened 10 roadshows in 3 cities, of which 3 were Weibo specials, which was also the first TV series to have a roadshow. During the roadshow, "Flowers" rushed to the hot search on Weibo many times, and some viewers saw the 2nd and 3rd episodes of this drama in advance, and they have taken the lead in discussing the amount of information about Flowers on Weibo
While the rave reviews have also been received, many people have asked, "Where did the first episode go?".That's right, the first episode of "Flowers" is a car accident and a sprinkling of banknotes by Mr. Bao, which is the process of making Bao Mr. Bao through the Shanghai ** market, and it is also the opening of most of the important characters in "Flowers" appearing one by one.
After watching 4 episodes, you will find that "Flowers" is very "Wong Kar-wai", with gorgeous colors filling every shot of the TV series, a large number of scenes of life and eating are full of fireworks in the market, and the daily simple meals that seem to have no plot are all the flow of emotions. But at the same time, "Flowers" is not "Wong Kar-wai", the rhythm of the "business war" in the first 4 episodes is relaxed, and even a little distraction can't keep up with the development of the plot, and the confusing relationship between the characters is in full swing, which is not at all the "slow pace" that everyone was worried about before.
At the same time, compared with the original work, the adaptation of "Flowers" is even more drastic, and even expresses two completely different emotional backgrounds, and the character settings and fates are also completely different.
It was like a home at first sight. On July 18, 2014, at the Hong Kong Book Fair, Wong Kar-wai and Jin Yucheng attended a lecture on ""Flowers" Writes Shanghai Stories". ”
In December 2012, Jin Yucheng's "Flowers" was first published in "Harvest" magazine, and it was reported that the name came from writing Shanghai's two best classics** "Prosperous Dream on the Sea" and "The Biography of Flowers on the Sea", each taking one word, which happened to be "Flowers". There are also reports that the name was seen by Kim Woo-sung in a fashion magazine. He felt that "Flowers" was much more exciting than the topics he had thought of before, such as "Shanghai Bao" and "A Pot of Wine among Flowers".
Flowers", around the life and growth of Bao, Husheng, Xiaomao's three childhood friends, just like a large-scale Shanghai life group portrait painting, the full text of the dialogue is mostly fragmented, gossipy, plus the way of writing in the Shanghai dialect, pick up this book, as if you have walked into the old alley of Shanghai.
In March 2013, the single book of "Flowers" was published, and in the autumn of 2013, Wong Kar-wai approached Jin Yucheng to sign a contract, Wong Kar-wai said, "Mr. Jin, there is no element of a movie in your **. For a long time, Jin Yucheng has regarded this sentence as Wong Kar-wai's praise for himself.
Because Jin Yucheng believes that "*'s personality traits lie in its language and style, and the pursuit of the integrity of the story is actually the reason for the intervention of film and television." Film and television dramas are required to be complete, and ** may only show personality and status. Therefore, in the original work of "Flowers", some paragraphs are as high as thousands of words, and some are only a few words, which is quite distinctive.
The first time I read "Flowers", Wong Kar-wai read it in one go, and after reading it, he immediately covered it, and it was enough to watch it once. "After reading this kind of book, you feel that you have gone through a lifetime, and Mr. Jin has put the story of his life and the words he has to tell into it, which is a very thick pot of soup. Wong Kar-wai said.
So what is Wong Kar-wai's "old at first sight"?It is Wong Kar-wai, who was born in Shanghai, who has feelings for Shanghai.
Wong Kar-wai was born in Shanghai in 1958, and when he was a child, he followed his mother, who got off work, from his grandmother's house on Wukang Road to Huaihai Road, which is an eternal memory in his heart. In 1963, Wong Kar-wai, who was only 5 years old, followed his father from Shanghai to Hong Kong to settle down, but his brother and sister stayed in Shanghai. Due to some force majeure, Wong Kar-wai and his brother and sister could only communicate by letter.
The story of "Flowers" mainly tells two stages, from the 1960s to the Cultural Revolution, from the 1980s to the end of the 1990s, these two time periods are just the blank space in Wong Kar-wai's heart about Shanghai's memory.
Although the drama version of "Flowers" spends a lot of space talking about Mr. Bao's business, Mr. Bao's daily life is inseparable from a bowl of small wontons, a fried dough stick that has just come out of the pot, no matter how big a business is, no matter how luxurious the feast is, but he will still go to Tokyo at night to eat a bowl of "Mr. Bao Rice", the breath of life is the existence of the most flattering atmosphere in the whole play, and it is also the "Shanghai taste" in Wong Kar-wai's heart.
No sound. When I opened "Flowers", the title page read, "God does not make a sound, as if everything is determined by me." In the trailer of the TV series "Flowers", this sentence also appeared.
"No sound" is one of the most commonly used words in Shanghainese, and it may be used several times a day by a Shanghainese, which on the surface means silent, speechless, silent, and silent, but in the context, the connotation is very complicated. In **, the word "no sound" appears more than a thousand times, and it is the most frequent word in ***, "Miss Wang does not ring", "Bao always does not ring", "Su An does not ring", almost every character has ever "not sounded".
What exactly does "no sound" mean in "Flowers"?In the context of Shanghainese, it is necessary to rely on one's own experience, which is often meaningful and requires speculation. Wong Kar-wai was also attracted by such a unique expression, "What makes this book particularly good is the dialect, which is not a simple Shanghainese, but an improved version of Shanghainese. ”
After being adapted into a TV series, the Shanghainese language was retained. When choosing actors, it became a hard rule to be able to speak the Shanghai dialect. In addition to the preservation of the dialect itself, Wong Kar-wai also used a lot of details to restore the charm of "no sound".
From the private room of the Red Egret Restaurant to the window of Zhizhen Garden, the eye contact between Mr. Bao and Li Li was sometimes like a torch, and sometimes they wanted to see through, and there was no real rivalry between the two, but they had secretly tricked many times.
That's the charm of "not ringing".
In the plot of the first 4 episodes, how Li Li let Mr. Bao come to Zhizhenyuan to talk about business is the biggest theme. After Mr. Bao had a car accident, he had been resting at the Peace Hotel, and he had not shown up for a month, and the Yellow River Road where he was talking about business was full of legends of Mr. Bao.
Li Li "parachuted" into the Yellow River Road and opened a restaurant at the most core intersection, but in fact, what she wanted to earn was not a meal money, but a commission for business dealings. And these are almost never explicitly expressed in the play, and the audience needs to understand it on their own.
Everyone in the Zhizhen Garden competed to do business with Mr. Fan, and between the conversations, the words were never full. Mr. Wei didn't ask Mr. Fan and Mr. Bao what kind of business they were doing, in short, they had to grab it for their own name;Li Li moved between the three of them, judging the situation;Miss Wang is full of energy, and she matches both sidesMr. Bao only talked about price reduction, without a single superfluous line.
Mr. Wei seems to have lost his business, but he has fulfilled his position on the Yellow River Road;Li Li even took advantage of this incident to successfully attract the attention of Mr. Bao;Mr. Bao also got Mr. Fan's shirt with a lower **;Miss Wang has completed her own performance;Even Mr. Fan opened the market on the Yellow River Road and got acquainted with more contacts. In this business war, under the operation of Li Li, there are no losers.
Mr. Bao and Reiko also have a "silent" expression, Mr. Bao knows that Reiko often takes money from himself, but he never breaks it, just like Mr. Bao himself said, "Speaking of which, I am a shareholder (in Night Tokyo), but I have no rights to other shareholders except for money." This kind of just the right amount of blank space in the relationship between all parties is in line with the "silent" Shanghai flavor in "Flowers".
New life. Jin Yucheng has a very clear understanding of the film and television adaptation of "Flowers", he said, "It is a new life." That's right, after watching 4 episodes, the audience should understand the meaning of this "new life".
Kim Woo-ching's "Flowers" and Wong Kar-wai's "Flowers" have very different emotional expressions.
The decision to create Flowers was made one day in 2010. Jin Yucheng went to work and entered an intersection and found a sixty-year-old woman shopping at a stall, and after a closer look, he found that he knew this woman, but this woman did not know Jin Yucheng, "She was actually the most beautiful beauty of the generation in Jing'an Temple in Shanghai in the 1970s, just like Malena in "The Beautiful Legend of Sicily". ”
Jin Yucheng sighed with emotion, "How can she be old and so depressed that she is nothing, and she can only sell children's socks and shoes on the roadside." At that moment, he felt a little sorry that a woman who was once so beautiful had become an old woman on the street after the washing of time.
Good flowers do not bloom" is one of the driving forces for Jin Yucheng to create "Flowers". also laid the slightly desolate tone of "Flowers". When he created "Flowers", Jin Yucheng was already 60 years old, and it was inevitable that some life insights would be integrated into the work. Especially at the end, the story takes a sharp turn, and the fate of each character is embarrassing, Kim Woo-cheng said, "I hope readers will cherish the good times like me." ”
Wong Kar-wai's "Flowers" is more positive and gorgeous, what he wants to express is not a flash in the pan, but the ups and downs of the life of a group of people who dare to work hard for their careers in the economic background of the times. Ah Bao, Lingzi, Miss Wang, Li Li, Tao Tao and others, no matter how big or small their roles are, they are all trendsetters of that era, and behind them are ordinary people struggling in Shanghai.
Mr. Bao is exquisite, and he became a rookie in the business world after getting the guidance of his uncle;Reiko, the proprietress of "Night Tokyo", has an independent career, and she has also taken herself to the next level through Mr. Bao;Miss Wang, as the "first generation of white-collar workers" in the play, found her own problems between Mr. Bao and No. 27 on the Bund, and inspired her to dare to think and dare to work hardLi Li has the temperament of an independent woman, and she has achieved strategic planning in the staggered planning of the situation. In the torrent of the times, they are all "flowers" one by one.
In addition to the interweaving of the fate of the characters and the background of the times, the emotional connection between Mr. Bao and Lingzi, Miss Wang, and Li Li, three women with great personalities, has also been created very wonderfully. Whether it's career help, or mutual support, or soul closeness, there is emotional tension between each pair of characters, which is not clear, but has a taste.
4 episodes of "Flowers", you can hardly see too much content in the original book, but what you can see is the epitome of the little people who are vivid and want to work hard in that era, and this "new life" has written its own process.
Although they have completely different emotional expressions, Kim Woo-ching's "Flowers" and Wong Kar-wai's "Flowers" have the same "taste", they are both composing a secular story, and then this secular story can trigger personal positions and independent thinking.
Flowers are "Flowers", and Flowers are also "Flowers".