Imaging Power Program
"Flowers" is not only not like Jin Yucheng's original work, but even Wong Kar-wai and Shanghai are not like it.
Shanghai is not like Shanghai, Wong Kar-wai's fashion films can't leave Hong Kong, otherwise they won't have that taste.
Therefore, even though "Flowers" is about Shanghai, Wong Kar-wai's set is still a colorful Hong Kong with traditional Chinese characters on neon signs replaced with simplified Chinese characters, and there is no local Shanghai atmosphere.
"Flowers" is to say, speak, ring, I say, he speaks, not ringing.
Speaking is not straightforward, always supporting things and words, knocking on the side, and telling things is also like telling a story, first suppressing and then raising, suppressing and frustrating, and taking the tone and tone.
But in Wong Kar-wai's hands, there was no sound, only I said and he spoke.
And this I said, he said, and there is no "don't explain clearly, don't explain thoroughly" You understand, I understand, everyone understands, but it is deliberately unfathomable and unnatural.
In particular, the lack of noise makes Shanghai unfamiliar, just like Wong Kar-wai, although he was born in Shanghai, he grew up in Hong Kong and does not retain much memory of Shanghai.
Therefore, the Shanghai under his lens is not the nostalgia in "Flowers", but the forcible reproduction of Shanghai Tang.
Mr. Bao's behavior is quite in a trance, and Shanghai's tone, shrewdness, and calculation have not been filmed.
Wong Kar-wai still used the logic of Hong Kong films to shoot "Flowers", like "East Evil and West Poison", drastically deleted the love in the original work "Flowers", which is Wong Kar-wai's forte.
In the mood for love, the display of Shanghai flavor complements each other, cheongsam, falling rain, lanes, in Hong Kong, you can see the appearance of Shanghai without speaking Shanghainese, in "Flowers", Wong Kar-wai downplays the love, and he is a little powerless.
Jin Yucheng uses "Flowers" to awaken the memory of Shanghai, and love is the carrier, expanding the story of the three classes of Bao, Husheng and Xiaomao.
Their stories then lead to the clothing, food, housing and transportation in Shanghai, the environment of different classes, as well as everything that the three of them experienced in the changing times, as well as the various men and women they met.
These things together are the Shanghai and Shanghainese people who have changed for decades, and they are also born and raised in Shanghai, and Jin Yucheng, who was born and grew up in Shanghai, was able to resonate with the locals in the "Lane Tang Network" with Shanghainese as the background, and it was the Shanghai they were familiar with.
However, Wong Kar-wai focuses on business warfare, and his perspective on Shanghai at first glance has gone astray and narrowed.
Shanghai has a strong business atmosphere, and everything is business-oriented, but Shanghai also considers human feelings, weakens feelings, and the extendable part becomes less, and the display of Shanghai is one-sided.
Jin Yucheng wrote "Flowers" in Shanghainese because the dialect represents the city, and the local people have a natural habit of communication.
Wong Kar-wai filmed "Flowers" in Shanghainese in order to highlight Shanghai, specifically telling people that he was filming Shanghai, just like a foreigner who came to Shanghai, in order to get close to and integrate into the local area, he learned a few sentences of Shanghainese in advance.
But if you talk a few more words, you will know that you are not a local dish, so Shanghai under the reform and opening up was photographed by Wong Kar-wai as a first-class drunk and drunken gold fan.
Actors are not like Wong Kar-wai, Wong Kar-wai's works need good actors, otherwise it will be half a failure.
And Hu Ge, Tang Yan, Ma Yili, Xin Zhilei and others in "Flowers" do not have a chemical reaction with Wong Kar-wai like Tony Leung and Maggie Cheung, there is a sense of separation that you guide yours and I play me.
The story is not like Wong Kar-wai, the subtle feelings are gone, the unique literature and art are lost, and only the fan is left.
Flowers is also the only work of Wong Kar-wai that did not participate in the screenwriting, which led to a significant reduction in Wong Kar-wai's style.
Wong Kar-wai's films do not have a beginning and a turn, and are often sketched with a few brushstrokes, with leaps of thought and stream of consciousness first.
Therefore, it needs to be whimsical and flashy on the scene, and if there is a well-structured script, it will limit his inspiration and aura, which is the case with "Flowers".
If there is no "director Wong Kar-wai", I am afraid it is difficult to see that this is Wong Kar-wai's handwriting.
In addition to a little frame extraction, slow motion and frequent shot scheduling, this completeness also allows us to see another Wong Kar-wai, that is, the big cool drama of the domineering president.
Hu Ge's Bao Zong's Nirvana is reborn, and the king returns, which is completely different from the background of "sadness" in **, Wong Kar-wai's main focus this time is a "fast", with a fast rhythm and fast narrative, which coincides with the current habits of watching dramas, and is no longer obsessed with his previous slowness and literary lines.
This change is not only reflected in the text, but also in the soundtrack and graphics, which have lost the shadow of Wong Kar-wai.
Suspenseful and tense, Wong Kar-wai has hardly used it in the past, but what is valuable is that the driving force to mobilize emotions and promote the plot is still there, but the spirituality and subtlety in the soundtrack that perfectly matched the movie in the past are gone.
Compared with Wong Kar-wai's other works, the picture is much inferior, and there is no beauty and artistic temperament in the past with filters, resulting in the disappearance of life, psychology, emotionality, personalization, and stylization in audiovisual language.
The previous technique of using audio-visual to express emotions such as loneliness, pride, confusion, and forgetfulness was abandoned by Wong Kar-wai and simplified, so that the audience no longer thinks about watching the drama and is more relaxed, so the picture of "Flowers" is more of a story to present the story.
In this way, Wong Kar-wai's aesthetic will definitely be criticized, because the top audio-visual enjoyment is no longer visible.
The euphemistic, beautiful, and scene-blended poetry movie has become a cool drama that follows the trend, so the reputation of "Flowers" is bound to be polarized.
As a fan of Wong Kar-wai, watching "Flowers" will be very awkward and disobedient, because the change is a bit fast, and it is difficult to adapt for a while, and it is very tangled.
But as a new audience, you will like to watch "Flowers", because of the bright rhythm and the McGuffin of the business war drama that is about to break out, Wong Kar-wai's handling is in place, which is enough to interest the audience.
"Flowers" is a fictional story of Hong Kong people who come to Shanghai to adapt to the water and soil, and it is already different, like an overhead background.
If you want high ratings and high reputation, you have to start from the story, and cool is the only highlight of "Flowers" after the collapse of other countries.
Now that these four episodes are updated, the business war's deceit, treachery, and insatiable greed are all presented, and the rhythm is gradually getting better, but it's confusing, fascinating, and silky reversals are not good enough, and the introduction can't catch fish, and no matter how good Erbium is, it won't help.
"Flowers" has the desire to make people want to watch it, but it is not enough to make people watch.
Today's TV series are different from literary films, you can't rely on tasting it slowly, you can find out how good it is, the longer it lasts, the more mellow it is, you have to immediately attract attention, and you can fall in love with it at a glance.
Wong Kar-wai's "change" this time is very commercial, from slow to fast-paced, it is good to be able to cool to the end, if not, it is not bad to have a dramatic tension with ups and downs, twists and turns.
If it is not done, then "Flowers" will definitely be a path of heated discussions for a few days, cold eyes, and a bleak ending.
After all, Wong Kar-wai's audio-visual enjoyment and literary style, male and female love affairs are gone, Jin Yucheng's Shanghai appearance is gone, and if the story is gone, then "Flowers" is really uninteresting.
It can be seen from this that Wong Kar-wai has always said that he is a commercial director and makes commercial films, not literary films, which is true.
He is very business-minded, knows sales, financing, marketing, and cost control, for example, he will edit different versions of the film for different markets and film festivals, and "The Grandmaster" has four versions, 3D, Chinese, European and American.
"Flowers" is his tailor-made product for the mainland market and audiences, making money is the first place, so please lower your expectations, Wong Kar-wai is not only a director, he is also a businessman and a boss, and he also values profits, at least the current "Flowers" has not become the second "Ferryman".