In this era of hunger and thirst for dramas, when the drama ends, there will always be a piece of chicken feathers left.
Wong Kar-wai's ** TV series "Flowers" is one of them.
This story, which tells the story of Shanghai from 1960 to 1990, came to an end after 34 episodes, but it made countless viewers linger in their hearts.
Why does "Flowers" end like this?
Why do these people end up living alone?
Why are Po and Miss Wang in love but not together?
Questions like these continue to ferment among the audience.
In this era, what everyone pursues is a happy and perfect ending in life.
However, "Flowers" resolutely broke this plot stereotype and chose a cruel and real ending.
This undoubtedly touched the heartstrings of countless audiences.
In fact, as the People's Entertainment commented on, "Flowers" is a parallel world, and the characters in the play interpret their own stories, and finally form a panoramic painting of Shanghai in the 1990s.
The painting may be unsatisfactory, but it is real and brutal.
Huangpu Road, the mother river of Shanghai, has witnessed too many stories of the city.
In the 90s of the 20th century, it was still bustling with people of all kinds.
They struggled individually, loved and hated, and eventually scattered again 10 years later.
Huangpu Road has become their gathering place.
This street connects the Bund to the interior and is one of the busiest areas in Shanghai.
People from all walks of life gathered here to pursue their dreams of Huangpu Road and want to make a fortune here.
Some of them succeeded, and some failed and some failed.
However, in the blink of an eye for 10 years, they scattered and fled, leaving this hot land, and continuing to pursue their dreams in the next stage.
Huangpu Road has witnessed their years of hard work like moths fighting fire, and has also recorded countless stories of ups and downs.
It is like a huge stage, where people come and go, and the flowers bloom and inevitably wither.
As the actor of "Flowers", Bao is always a typical ** investor.
In the early 90s of the 20th century, he ran the "Baoli Company" on Huangpu Road, and he made a windfall by relying on **, and became famous for a while.
Baoli Company is located at No. 300 Huangpu Road, with a superior geographical location and prosperous business.
As a result, Mr. Bao has accumulated considerable wealth and become the number one person in the world.
He spent a lot of money and had no worries about food and clothing, and became the object of learning for many investors.
However, the good times were short-lived.
With the entry of the strong total ** and the sudden rise of financial capital, the stock price of Baoli Company has been hit repeatedly.
In desperation, Mr. Bao could only choose to surrender and quit.
He left the Baoli company he had founded for many years, and also left the familiar Huangpu Road.
However, Mr. Bao's story does not end there.
After leaving, he seized the historical opportunity of Pudong's development with his keen business sense.
He decisively bought a large piece of cheap land in Pudong and transformed into a real estate developer.
In just a few years, Mr. Bao built high-rise buildings in Pudong and became an emerging real estate giant.
He left the ** siege of Huangpu Road, but ushered in spring in another field.
Perhaps, this is where Mr. Bao is extraordinary.
He has a knack for learning from failures and turning crises into opportunities.
The rout of * did not defeat him, but instead inspired him to be more self-motivated.
With his outstanding business acumen, Mr. Bao has successfully transformed from a failed investor to a real estate tycoon.
His legendary deeds became a model for the mall elite of that era, and many people wanted to follow his path and fight their way through the mall again.
If Bao is always the male protagonist of "Flowers", then Miss Wang is the heroine.
This girl from Pudong originally worked on Huangpu Road and lived a small life.
From morning to night, Ms. Wang kept doing odd jobs in shopping malls, restaurants and other places on Huangpu Road, diligent, simple and studious.
She wakes up early and works hard, and has won unanimous praise from many bosses.
Later, Ms. Wang gradually gained a firm foothold in Huangpu Road and began to grow into a businessman in her own right.
She has successfully run a number of industries and accumulated contacts and capital.
Finally, 10 years later, Ms. Wang successfully acquired a high-quality port terminal on the banks of the Huangpu River with years of accumulation.
She renovated the place, gave it a romantic and catchy name, and since then she has become an authentic Shanghai woman.
Unlike Mr. Bao, Ms. Wang did not leave Huangpu Road.
She still runs her own wharf here, making a profit from leasing and processing.
Even at the end of the play, she and Mr. Bao looked across the river, looking forward to their reunion five years later.
Miss Wang has achieved a gorgeous transformation from a working girl to a strong woman, and as the eventual successful businessman in "Flowers", she has proved with her strength that an ordinary woman can also gain a foothold in the financial center of Huangpu Road and create brilliance with her own hands.
In an era when most women work as an ordinary part-time worker, Miss Wang is an outlier.
She is not willing to be mediocre, starting from the most basic work, and gradually gaining a firm foothold in the mall through her own efforts.
Miss Wang's legendary experience became a benchmark for women in that era, proving that women were no worse than men, and that they could also fight their way through the shopping mall and dominate one side.
Unlike successful businessmen such as Mr. Bao and Miss Wang, Reiko and Li Li are more like Hongchen customers.
They were originally in the deep palace, Reiko was the emcee and host of ***, and Li Li was funded by a wealthy lover, so he had no worries about his life.
Reiko relies on her beautiful appearance and flexible eloquence to mix like a fish in water in ***.
She has hosted countless evening parties and witnessed the honor and disgrace of countless successful people.
And Li Li has the good fortune of an upper-class lover, has no worries about food and clothing, and is favored by all honors.
They could have relied on men to soar through the red dust and live a worry-free life.
However, the good times did not last long, and they had to leave Shanghai, where they had practiced for many years, and embarked on an unknown path.
Reiko lost her job under the calculation of her boss, and had no choice but to go to Hong Kong to develop her career and open her own ***
And Li Li's lover dived and died, causing her identity to be exposed and eventually imprisoned.
After being released from prison, Li Li became a monk in Guangzhou and broke with the world.
None of them have been able to gain a foothold in their hometown of Huangpu Road, on the contrary, it has become a passing station in their lives.
Even so, Reiko and Li Li also left a splendid flower season on Huangpu Road.
They have had their ups and downs.
This has become a unique mark on their lives.
Unlike the above characters, Mr. Qiang and Mr. Fan can be described as ups and downs.
Mr. Qiang relied on financial means to defeat Mr. Bao and once dominated the business community of Huangpu Road.
He used the power of capital to acquire Mr. Bao**, resulting in the stock price**.
For a time, Mr. Qiang reached the peak and became the second person after Mr. Bao.
All investors are afraid of his financial prowess, and no one dares to compete with him anymore.
And Mr. Fan, as Mr. Bao's sworn enemy, has also pressed step by step, fighting with Mr. Bao.
The two can be described as incompatible.
When Mr. Bao was getting weaker and weaker, Mr. Fan almost took his place and became the number one stock god on Huangpu Road.
For a while, the two became the target of public criticism, fighting for years, you have me, I have you.
However, shopping malls are like battlefields, and Mr. Qiang and Mr. Fan will not escape the fate of the big waves after all.
Under the repeated blows of the regulatory authorities, Mr. Qiang was imprisoned for manipulation and was finally sentenced to 3 years in prison.
Mr. Fan's company also went bankrupt in the stock market crash, and he had no choice but to go back to his hometown Hangzhou to plant roses for the elderly.
One is in prison, the other is isolated, Mr. Qiang and Mr. Fan can be said to have failed, and neither of them has survived in this center of business warfare.
In "Flowers", we see the struggle of many characters such as Mr. Bao and Miss Wang.
Some of them succeeded, some failed, some left, and some remained.
Mr. Bao took a risk after being disappointed and created a more brilliant future.
Ms. Wang gradually transformed from a working girl to a strong woman and continued to operate on Huangpu Road.
And Mr. Qiang, Mr. Fan and others were in the mall and had no choice but to leave.
Huangpu Road has witnessed their ill-fated struggle.
Crowds of people come and go, and today's heroes may become tomorrow's visitors.
However, in any case, the stage of Huangpu Road is still full of people.
Although the flowers are beautiful, they are also easy to cry.
This is the portrayal of this era.
Mr. Bao and Miss Wang have always had subtle feelings between them, they love and kill each other in the mall, and they are also inextricably linked in life.
This intricate relationship has become a unique landscape in their life journey.
Five years later, when the two met in the Oriental Pearl, we don't know what kind of sparks would be sparked.
We can only see through the mirror of "Flowers" that these small people in Shanghai struggled to collide in the 1990s.
They are hot-blooded and persistent, but they are also helpless.
This is a portrayal of easy crying after the flowers bloom.
Why did "Flowers" end like this? Because that's the reality.
Shanghai's Huangpu Road has witnessed the beginning and end of too many stories.
The characters come and go here in a hurry, but their emotions are real and up-and-down.
"Flowers" is such a huge picture of the times.
We saw the Shanghai wells in the 90s, and we also saw the little people who rushed around and crashed on Huangpu Road.
They succeed or fail and eventually depart to become part of the city's human memory.
This drama is real and cruel, but it is also romantic and melancholy.
As asked at the beginning, this is the truth of the ending of "Flowers".
It's not perfect, but it's realistic.
The road of life is never perfect, and each of us is struggling to move forward, crashing and falling, and then getting back up again.
Flowers" records the eventful years when this generation pursued their dreams in troubled times.
They are hot-blooded and stubborn, ill-fated, and they have to compromise when they move forward.
This is a microcosm of the entire era.
This is Huangpu Road, this is Shanghai from 1960 to 1990, and this is the true portrayal of the small people in the market in "Flowers".