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Posted in: Review, TV | Tagged: blossoms shanghai, C-Drama, Chinese television series, in the mood for love, Tencent Video, wong kar-wai
Blossoms Shanghai: Wong Kar Wai Series Beautiful, Elegiac But Tedious
Blossoms Shanghai, the first Chinese TV series from auteur Wong Kar Wai, has all of his cinematic tricks & atmosphere but is a tedious bore.
Every new movie from Wong Kar Wai is considered a major cultural event, so his first television series Blossoms Shanghai is possibly the most eagerly awaited event in China and movie lovers worldwide. A 30-episode adaptation of Jin Yucheng's award-winning novel premiered in China only on broadcast television and Tencent video. There are so far no plans for a US and international premiere, but fans might be in for a disappointment. As of this writing, eight episodes have been streamed exclusively on Tencent in China without English subtitles, and the bad news is the series is already a tedious slog.
Blossoms Shanghai follows the story of Ah Bao (Hu Ge) as he goes from nobody to dubious success in the 1990s. It's Chinese New Year's Eve, and Ah Bao is on top of the world. The city is lit so bright it looks like it's made of gold, with Ah Bao handing out red envelopes to well-wishers at parties before he's mown down by a taxi in a deliberate hit-and-run. The story then hops between his early days in the 1960s and the 1990s when China began to open, and rampant financial investment and opportunities started up, prompting stock market fever in people who had never bought a single stock before in their lives. There are riches to be made, and Ah Bao is going to be the one who makes him – on top of the backs of everyone else. But first, he needs the patronage of an influential city elder and gets the support of four glamourous women as he becomes the symbol of Shanghai's progress to its golden age in the 1990s. That's the plot anyway, but it takes a long time to get going as it jumps back and forth in time.
Blossoms Shanghai Maybe a Great Movie Buried in Over 20+ Hours?
All of Wong Kar Wai's cinematic tricks and techniques are on display in Blossoms Shanghai: the dreamy camerawork drifting in and out of staggered slow motion and elliptical editing, the waltz-y music, the close-ups of clocks to create a dream of a lost time. The series aims to celebrate Shanghai in all its cultural glory: the food, the narcissistic, emotionally distant man whose unavailability drives women to heartbreak and destruction. The problem is, without any unrequited romance or thwarted desire, the cinematic tricks don't sing. And with so many episodes, the series plods along with plenty of atmosphere but any real plot and the technical tricks don't sing. It just plods along very prettily when it should sing like Wong Kar Wai's best movies, especially In the Mood for Love, on which his reputation rests in the West.
It's possible there's a great two-hour movie to be cut from those thirty episodes, but without a tale of yearning and desire, it's scene after scene of greedy – but very well-dressed – people talking about how much money they're going to make and how they're going to rip off someone. Its celebration of the novel and Shanghai culture may be front and center, but there's not enough story to back up the mood.
Chinese TV Drama Series Have Too Many Episodes
Virtually every Mainland Chinese TV drama series has too many episodes these days, and they all suffer for it. Bad pacing and too many filler episodes dissipate the dramatic tension and urgency, and they often fail to stick the landing. Chinese streamers and broadcasters demand episode orders of between thirty and forty episodes, the latter a restriction imposed by the government after series got out of hand with over seventy episodes per series. At 30 episodes, Blossoms Shanghai feels too stretched out to have a truly satisfying story, even if it might slavishly adapt every ounce of the original novel.
An Eye Toward Major International Premiere
It's no accident that Blossoms Shanghai currently lacks English subtitles for international audiences. Wong Kar Wai is a filmmaker whose reputation is founded in international circles, particularly in film festivals that gave his films the prestige he now enjoys. His distribution company, Block 2 Distribution, is currently handling international sales for the series and is likely looking to premiere it at an international film festival, then license it to a major streaming service and possibly a physical media release with a company like The Criterion Collection. This may be the first review of the series, at least its first episodes, and so far, it's too much of a bore just waiting for things to happen. The food looks delicious, though, but unless you live near a restaurant that serves Shanghainese cuisine, you're just going to have to live in yearning, which might be the real layer of unrealized desire you're going to get from this show. if you're a hardcore Sinophile and Wong Kar Wai fan, you might fall in love with Blossoms Shanghai and its 30-episode love letter to the city's recent history. If you're not, you'll get bored wondering what the fuss is all about.
Blossoms Shanghai
5/10
The world's most stylishly dream-like romantic filmmaker Wong Kar Wai released his first Chinese TV series, a love letter to his birth city of Shanghai adapted from an award-winning novel using his usual cinematic tricks and dreamy, elegiac atmosphere. The problem is, without a strong love story to ground it, the series fails to sing, and at 30 episodes, becomes a crushing bore with repetitive scenes of greedy people trying to make their fortunes off other people's back. The cinematography looks gorgeous, the food looks delicious but it's all plodding and empty, if very pretty.
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