Sentence | Kibōharu
Edit | Xi Panqing
Source | Xiaoyang Video People's Entertainment
CCTV comments on "Flowers"
With the hit of a TV series, once again bringing fire to a city and a dialect, what kind of unique charm does "Flowers" have?
On the evening of January 9, the TV series "Flowers", which was launched at the end of last year and directed by top film and television director Wong Kar-wai, has been dominating various hot search lists, and finally came to a successful end.
From the end of 2023 to the end of 2024, this TV series has accompanied us through the alternation of the old and the new years, just like the story described in the TV series, it has also witnessed the change of times.
For this TV series with only 30 episodes, but it has made countless viewers have endless memories, as the main short video account of CCTV, "Xiaoyang Video" summarized and broadcast it, and did not hesitate to praise and praise it.
The video quotes the content of the film critic's analysis of "Flowers" in the "Today's Film Review" program, just like many netizens' perceptions of this TV series, the film critic's analysis of "Flowers" is also divided into two stages.
Now the perfect curtain call and rave reviews of "Flowers", the word-of-mouth at the time of the broadcast, the negative evaluation may be greater than the positive evaluation, which can be described as a beautiful "turnaround".
The main reason for this initial situation is that the TV series is a subversive adaptation of the original novel, which can even be said to be "purely original", and the unique style of Wong Kar-wai's film and television works, which is not acceptable to everyone.
Movies such as "The True Story of A Fei", "Chongqing Forest", and "The Grandmaster" have established Wong Kar-wai's pivotal position in the film and television industry, even if it is internationally famous.
But when Wong Kar-wai jumped out of the "comfort zone" of movies and entered the TV drama industry, many people would inevitably put a question mark in their hearts.
After all, Wong Kar-wai's style is too unique and significant, and it can be called art in a movie, but if it is placed in a TV series with a wider audience, it may be difficult for the general public who have not seen this style to accept.
Because of this, in the early days of the broadcast, "Flowers" was questioned more than praised, because Wong Kar-wai's film style does not use grinding and filters, only uses light and shadow and "frame extraction" techniques to create the desired picture effect and atmosphere.
But in the eyes of some viewers who don't like this style, Wong Kar-wai's style of light and shadow is "too dark and unclear", making the picture "stuck" to create a sense of atmosphere, and it is "unknowing, dizzy".
In addition, there are more characters in the first few episodes of "Flowers", and the lines are relatively dense, so that viewers who are used to watching slow-paced domestic dramas in recent years can't grasp the key point for a while, and don't know what this TV series is filming.
Therefore, for the evaluation of the first 4 episodes of "Flowers", film critics called it "form is greater than content", which means that these episodes set a tone for the entire TV series, so that the audience gradually Xi Wong Kar-wai's film and television style.
And after the initial stage, when the plot line of "Flowers" unfolded one by one, the personalities and images of each character became full, and the charm of this TV series was finally fully reflected.
Wong Kar-wai used the technique of filmmaking to shoot the TV series, giving the actors a lot of close-up close-ups, fully portraying the emotions of the characters, coupled with the picture style that has already set the tone, film critics called it "high-end".
There are not a few movies that can be described as "high-end", but TV series that can match this word are very scarce in today's domestic TV drama industry.
It can be said that Wong Kar-wai spent a full 3 years polishing "Flowers", which made countless viewers see what it means to be truly attentive and truly worthy of being a good TV series.
However, it is extremely difficult to replicate the success of "Flowers", after all, in today's domestic TV drama industry, in order to reap the benefits as quickly as possible, it is impossible to spend several years polishing a work.
They are more inclined to use well-known actors with large fan groups to create one "assembly line" TV series after another at the fastest speed, and ordinary viewers don't care about the perception at all, anyway, no matter what it looks like, there are fans desperately touting it.
It is for this reason that at the end of the video, the critic spoke highly of "Flowers", believing that "it may be that for a long time, the TV series "Flowers" will become a unique product".
However, compared with CCTV's praise for "Flowers", netizens uphold their own opinions, which also leads to the fact that even if "Flowers" has fought a beautiful turnaround, the reputation is still in a polarized situation.
Word-of-mouth is polarized
"Flowers" depicts Shanghai in the 90s of the last century, the story mainly takes place in a high-end commercial place called "Yellow River Road", and the plot is the intrigue of business wars, the sophistication of human feelings, and the emotional entanglements between characters.
In order to perfectly restore the Shanghai of that era, Wong Kar-wai deliberately selected Hu Ge, Tang Yan and other Shanghainese actors as the leading actors, and the characters in the play use Shanghainese dialect.
However, in order to take care of the audience who don't like dialects, Wong Kar-wai also launched an additional Mandarin version, but most viewers still like the Shanghainese version, thinking that in this way they can fully appreciate the unique charm of that era.
It can be said that Wong Kar-wai spent a lot of thought in order to let more people watch this TV series.
Wong Kar-wai, one of Asia's most famous directors, spent three years carefully polishing his works, and the quality of the final presentation can be imagined.
Some viewers regard this drama as a treasure, and they can't stop watching it, and they recall their own past through the 90s of the last century depicted in the play.
But there are also viewers who don't like it, thinking that "Flowers" is so bad that they can't watch it at all.
And in addition to not liking it themselves, they don't allow others to like it, and they classify the audience who likes "Flowers" as a type of person who is "vassal, elegant, pretending to be in tune", and is crazy on the Internet.
The reasons for this comment situation, which we have mentioned before, need to be analyzed from many aspects.
The first is director Wong Kar-wai's unique picture style, which is "art" and "high-end" for some people, but for others, it is not appreciated.
and then there is the Yellow River Road in Shanghai in the TV series, which is a look of bright lights and drunken gold, which makes people think that they can't help but sink, but some netizens think that the shooting is too "fake", and it is not Shanghai in the 90s at all.
In these people's concepts, China in the 90s of the last century should be simple and poor, and it is impossible to spend tens of thousands of yuan on a casual meal as portrayed in the TV series.
Even if you have experienced that era, but are not Shanghai locals, or people who live in Shanghai but have never known about the Yellow River Road, it is difficult to imagine that there would be such a "magical" place in China in the 90s.
And when people who have really seen and experienced the prosperous period of Shanghai's Yellow River Road confirm the authenticity of the content of the TV series to netizens, those who say that "Flowers" is too fake are still unwilling to admit the narrowness of their views.
Those netizens originally aimed at the TV series and pointed at the audience who loved this TV series, claiming that only Shanghainese people liked and could understand this TV series.
In fact, most of these viewers have only watched the first few episodes, and some have not even watched an episode, so they dare to stand up and belittle this TV series as useless.
And those viewers who still claim that they don't like it after watching the whole TV series, they are purely going to "pick and choose", after all, if they really don't like it, how can they have the patience to watch the whole TV series?
In addition to the audience who don't like Wong Kar-wai's directorial style and question the authenticity of the era portrayed in the TV series, there are also some fans of the original novel of "Flowers" who are also hostile to this TV series.
The TV series "Flowers" is adapted from the novel of the same name by the famous writer Jin Yucheng, won the Mao Dun Literature Award, and was hailed as the best novel in China to describe Shanghai, and was once compared with "Dream of Red Mansions".
But Wong Kar-wai did not shoot exactly according to the original book, and even only extracted a few characters from it, and the rest of the plot and ending were original, so he was criticized by many fans of the original novel.
From the beginning to the end of the TV series, the debate between fans of the original book and fans of the TV series has never stopped.
Now that "Flowers" is over, bidding farewell to the audience, this war without gunpowder is still hot.
In the end, the "People's Entertainment" personally came to the end, drawing a symbol of the end of this war.
Just like the old saying that has been passed down for a long time, there are a thousand Hamlets in the hearts of a thousand people, as long as it is a work, there will always be people who like it, and at the same time, there will be people who dislike or even dislike it.
Therefore, a good work should be scrutinized by the audience, and then the audience should feel it by themselves, rather than unilaterally thinking that it is good or bad, and provoke confrontation on the Internet and force everyone to stand on the same front.
This approach will only backfire, making viewers who have not yet watched the TV series have "preconceived" ideas, and when they watch it themselves, they may lose most of their real feelings.
epilogue
Although the reputation of the TV series "Flowers" is still polarized, it is undeniable that this TV series is indeed out of the circle.
It is precisely because it is so popular that it will cause such heated discussions and controversies, after all, if a TV series is obscure, no one will watch it at all, and netizens will not even bother to leave negative comments.
The success of "Flowers", on the one hand, has raised the threshold for domestic TV dramas, so that those directors who can only make shoddy assembly line works are at risk, and on the other hand, it has also made the audience realize that China can actually make good TV series.
But there is only one Wong Kar-wai, and not all actors can be like Hu Ge and Tang Yan, who are willing to use the actor's 3 years of prime time to carefully polish a TV series whose success or failure is unknown.
Perhaps, as CCTV commented, for a long time in the future, "Flowers" will be a unique product that no one can match or surpass.