Finally finished watching "Blooming Flowers" intermittently. Overall, it feels like a drama that starts off strong but loses its momentum, focusing more on visual aesthetics than on exploring the plot of nostalgia and retro.
At the beginning, I was attracted by Wong Kar-wai's unique cinematography and film aesthetics, but the excessive use of camera movements, mirror glass, and slow-motion shots made my eyes tired after watching for a while.
Certain characters using specific BGM make them feel stereotypical. When Miss Wang is excited, "My Future is Not a Dream" plays, and when she is sad, "Looking Back" plays. By the way, why didn't they use the version by Jiang Yuheng for "Looking Back"? Experienced viewers can guess the plot development from the BGM.
However, this drama doesn't really leave much to guess. Baobao, the prodigal son, loves his first love who dumped him until death. It is accompanied by elements of business competition, family drama, and the trend of the times. There is also a scene with Chung Chun-to, the Hong Kong chef, which connects to the 1995 film "The Banquet" directed by Tsui Hark.
Usually, when you see this scene, you will think of "The Banquet" and the late Leslie Cheung, who passed away like blooming flowers.
The relationship between the TV series and the original work is basically "borrowing a head." Apart from the names of the characters and locations, even the punctuation marks don't match.
Bao Zong & Li Li#
In the final episode, Mr. A appears, a face that looks like Bao Zong? This inevitably makes people speculate that Mr. A is Bao Zong, but their ages don't match, and the actual plot doesn't match either.
If Bao Zong is Mr. A, then Li Li and Qiang Zong were originally the eighteen arhats under Mr. A. Were they playing house together?
I can only say that they look alike, or maybe Bao Zong is Li Li's older brother. If they look alike, it's understandable that Li Li would be shocked when she first saw Bao Zong. But she wasn't.
So, there's another possibility, it's all a smoke screen. Bao Zong imagines himself as Mr. A, saying, "I'm not a corpse collector, I have my own methods"; Li Li imagines Bao Zong as Mr. A, seeing them both as outstanding and charming; the director imagines Bao Zong as Mr. A for the audience, forcibly imagining Bao Zong and Li Li as a pair of lovers who love each other but cannot be together.
I think it's unnecessary to make Mr. A's face the same as Bao Zong's, it's just adding unnecessary complications.
Bao Zong and Li Li don't have any love between them, they have a business relationship where they cooperate and sometimes take advantage of each other in the business world.
I don't see any love between these two. Li Li is deeply attached to Mr. A, and Bao Zong is deeply in love with Xue Zhi. As for Bao Zong and Li Li, there is no spark between them. They part ways with their suitcases at the end, without even saying goodbye.
Since their relationship doesn't even qualify as friendship, what's the point of making Mr. A look like Bao Zong?
Bao Zong hasn't lost, nor does he owe anyone anything. He has gained a lot.
He went from being a foreign trade manager to a real estate developer, and even held a banquet for the Union Fleet, taking revenge on his important opponent, Qiang Qiang, by sending him to prison. He seems like a big winner no matter how you look at it, so why does the ending feel so desolate, leaving without a sound?
The failure of "Blooming Flowers" lies in the fact that in the last episode, every character's ending is forcefully arranged, just like the concluding paragraph of an elementary school essay that must summarize the main idea of the entire text. There's no need to cover everything, explain every character's fate clearly, and deprive the audience of their imagination. This kind of ending treatment is neither perfect nor sophisticated, it's just like a formulaic essay.
Freeze the frame at the moment when Bao Zong hands his suitcase to Xiao Xiao Gu, wearing a windbreaker, shrinking his neck, leaving the Peace Hotel in the wind and snow, and that's it.
The audience can imagine that he is bidding farewell to his golden age, with the blooming flowers fading away. Maybe he will become an ordinary person, maybe he will continue to ride the waves when the next wave comes.
Why bother to come back and watch the fireworks, standing in the middle of the rapeseed flowers, not feeling embarrassed, forcibly elevating the theme.
Li Li's ending is even more outrageous. With tens of millions of dollars at stake, she doesn't even blink her eyes. As one of Mr. A's eighteen arhats, she is a powerful female boss on Huanghe Road, fierce and decisive.
Li Li used the proceeds from selling Zhizhen Garden to repay all the remaining debts of Mr. A, and voluntarily confessed to the police her crime of using someone else's ID card. She was sentenced to one year in prison, and a few years later, she became a nun at the South China Temple in Guangzhou.
For a woman like her, using this paragraph to end her story is ridiculous. Would a person worth tens of millions of dollars willingly use someone else's ID card and confess to a crime just to go to jail? It's an insult to the intelligence of the audience, completely nonsense!
Let's not talk about the huge gap between the drama and reality, just from the perspective of the plot and character development, is she the kind of outstanding party member who firmly upholds the dignity of the law and doesn't take a single needle or thread from the masses? Is she the kind of person who becomes a nun for love? Don't tell me nonsense!
Li Li's ending, leaving after selling Zhizhen Garden at a high price, without looking back, is more in line with her independent personality. Obviously, she is the next Mrs. Lin.
Wang Mingzhu & Lingzi#
I really can't understand Xiao Wang. After Bao Zong publicly took a slap for her in Shanghai, she turned around and competed with him for business? She said she would earn back the favor tenfold or a hundredfold, and she actually did it, making Bao Zong so angry that he left early.
Every time Xiao Wang appears, she brings her own BGM, like a girl of the times, daring and ambitious, thinking that there is gold everywhere in Shanghai, not behaving like a normal person.
I actually think Mei Ping's character is more down-to-earth, making it hard for people to hate her even though they want to.
During the nights in Tokyo with Bao Zong, the happiest and most heartwarming moments of the whole drama, surrounded by a group of good friends, friends who are a bit ambiguous and warm, waiting for you to have dinner together every day, there are countless debts of gratitude, endless family gossip, quarrels and fights, never leaving each other.
The reason Lingzi stays in Night Tokyo even after Bao Zong leaves is because she is afraid that if she leaves, she will take away Bao Zong's luck as well. What if?
This kind of woman is so lovely. Dependent but not attached, independent and sensible. I think Lingzi and Bao Zong would be the most suitable couple if they were together.
Uncle & Director Jin#
Director Jin is the person who betrayed Uncle and took his place. Every time I see Uncle with a constipated expression, I can't figure it out. You betrayed me, caused me to go to jail, not only without any guilt, but also with a disdainful expression as if you despise cockroaches and bugs.
He always has a professional expression, even the hug with Xiao Wang at the end seems stiff and dull, without revealing any human emotions. I think this character is the most difficult to grasp because she is not playing a specific character, she is playing the system.
Uncle is like Zhuge Liang by Liu Bei's side, strategizing and guiding the country. It can be said that without Uncle, there would be no Bao Zong.
Knowing that Bao Zong is a romantic, but still opposing the boss at Walmart on every order. He originally wanted to give a favor to Miss Wang, but as a financial manager, why does he take the orders so seriously? It's unnecessary.
I guess the main reason is that Bao Zong wants to go all-in. Uncle originally thought that with a steady stream of orders, he could continue to be the CFO and Bao Zong wouldn't lose everything. It would be a win-win situation. But Bao Zong acted as if he was risking everything, so Uncle had no choice but to withdraw.
Uncle's ending, I think it should be like this: Mei Ping leaves on the 27th, and comes to see Uncle for the last time. He behaves completely differently from usual, showing no mercy. This is a bit like the first time Uncle met Ah Bao, testing him in various ways.
Without Ah Bao, Uncle still has two young ladies to feed, so he sets his sights on Mei Ping, who does whatever it takes to do business and is not like Ah Bao, who is in Huangpu River but has his heart in Suzhou Creek, emotional and impractical.
Assisting Mei Ping is actually less troublesome than assisting Ah Bao.
Other Characters#
I think the actress Lu Meilin's performance is outstanding, full of emotions, with a bold and arrogant personality, a true villainous face. Her expression after slapping Bao Zong is detailed and her acting is explosive. It is true that everyone is focused on and praising Hu Ge's dedication to getting slapped, but let's not overlook Lu Meilin's brilliant interpretation after the slap.
My impression of Chen Long is still stuck on Wu Song, but I didn't expect him to fit the role of Tao Tao so well, even kneeling on a washboard with great vigor. He and Teacher Ge add a touch of Shanghai flavor to the drama, injecting comedic effects.
Tao Tao borrows 300 yuan from Bao Zong and leaves singing like a little bird. His departure is a reflection of the majority of men who are suffocated by life and cannot breathe. He plays mahjong, bowls; some people choose fishing, playing NAS. They can never fly.
Fang Fang and Mr. A are equally mysterious, hardly showing their faces. It's not hard to see the director's intention, Mr. A is a symbol in himself, and Fang Fang also represents a symbol, like a wildcard in regular expressions, matching all those spouses of men who are trapped in a struggle.
Fan Zhiyi, I guess she wants to kill the person who designed the poster cover for her individually.
Mr. Fan, apart from being funny and annoying, finally brings Miss Wang back on track in her career, waves his hand, and says goodbye to the world. His role is to dilute some of the cruelty of the business world.
The small shop owner is a storyteller, providing additional information when the plot cannot be explained by the main narrative. Like a wandering monk, detached from the plot. If we were to find a character name from the original work, he would be called Xiao Mao.
With wise eyes, calm and light-hearted. The beautiful scenery of the world is all passing, life is but a dream, cigarettes cannot solve the bitterness of life, strong alcohol cannot dispel the sorrows of the world. So he sells cigarettes first, then sells flowers. The main theme is blooming flowers like a dream, gathering and dispersing like the wind.