A "Flowers" kicked off the popularity of the drama series in 2024, and also made Shanghai in the 90s once again the focus of discussion on social media.
"Flowers" is like a small incision, presenting us with a partial real picture of China in the 90s.
As more post-80s and post-90s generations become the main force in film and television drama creation, we find that the China depicted in the 90s is not the same in different dramas.
Open a series of dramas set in the 90s, such as "Flowers", "Mountains and Seas", "Big River 3", "The Long Season", "The Wind Blows in the Summer", and we can see a fast-developing China with different individual fates.
There are people who enjoy life at the top of the bustling pyramid, and there are silent individuals who silently swallow the icy waves of the era.
China in the 90s seemed to be a real parallel world.
"Everybody misses the 90s"
On social media such as Xiaohongshu, we always see some hot posts that are nostalgic for the 90s.
"Everyone in the 90s had a happy and innocent smile on their faces, even though the material life was not so rich at that time. And the source of this happiness is vividly restored in the form of images in the episodes set in the 90s.
The kitten bent over and rushed to Tong Xiaoqi in the skating rink, and the song of "I said I only have you in my eyes" sounded just right.
When the ambiguous atmosphere reached its peak, "The Wind Blows in the Summer" also ushered in a lot of discussion.
"That's the best memory of my junior high school, going to the rink with my friends during winter break. ”
At the moment of 2024, most of the northern regions have ski resorts, and the former indoor skating rinks have long since slowly retired from the stage of history. It's like in "The Sea in My Dreams", Hong Ling took out skates from the 70s and wanted to give them to the daughter of her first love, Ye Guohua, but she was disgusted with the old style. Looking back at the 90s today, in fact, the material conditions at that time were still very scarce.
In "Hurricane", in order to mourn his son, the underworld boss Xu Jiang filled his mourning hall with AD calcium milk. This practice has made AD calcium milk, a national item that is essential for post-90s children, popular again.
The eldest son of the underworld who calls for wind and rain, his favorite drink is only AD calcium milk, and his favorite entertainment activity is just to go to electric fish, which is too lackluster at the moment when the "show off wealth" means are full of tricks.
Similarly, in "Flowers", Miss Wang's favorite pork rib rice cake is not a rare dish today, but it was a lovely delicacy at the time.
After the series was broadcast, many fans admired the time-honored shops on the Yellow River Road in Shanghai, but the response from many foodies was mediocre.
At a time when material desires are extremely abundant, the threshold of happiness and joy is raised.
For the post-80s and post-90s, nostalgia for the 90s may just be a happy experience projected by childhood memories, and what is missed is more of a carefree and protected time, a feeling of material scarcity and spiritual fullness, and a 90s with a time filter, rather than the real 90s.
China in the 90s was an era of various waves of reform. In the torrent of history, it is often difficult for people to perceive the direction of the tide of the times, and the washing and baptism of personal destiny. However, looking back at the starting point, it is not difficult to see the changes in the fate of individuals in the context of the times.
Some college students who have just stayed in Beijing have caught up with the large-scale urbanization movement and housing reform, and since then they have ushered in a leap in their fortunes. There are also people like the factory employees in "The Long Season", who live in peace every day without feeling the storm coming.
Comparing these episodes side by side, we will find the amazing "Chinese folding".
Expand "Folding China"
Someone is at the top of the dazzling pyramid, and there is a silent majority
The Shanghai in "Flowers" is full of rich and charming petty bourgeois atmosphere. The Shanghai woman who is to the extreme is the ultimate swagger of a city facing the spring breeze.
This kind of extreme charming growth is also limited to the Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Shanghai regions in the 90s when funds are fast entering the market.
At the same time, Zhejiang's private enterprises are also ushering in a period of vigorous growth. The prototype of the theme of "The Wind Blows in the Summer" is taken from the development history of private enterprises in Zhejiang.
Bravely buying a large amount of scrap steel in Russia, buying tidal flats, merging and reorganizing state-owned enterprises, and encouraging subordinates to test the Internet, Xu Banxia has taken every step ambitiously but gracefully.
From the title of the play "Savage Growth" to the broadcast of the title of the play "The Wind Blows in the Summer", it vividly portrays the entrepreneurial state of the first batch of private entrepreneurs under the wave of reform and opening up. They are hungry for miracles and are creating myths.
"The Years of the Great River" also places the background in the 90s, when the market economy was in its infancy, and takes the individual struggles of Song Yunhui and Liang Sishen as clues to reflect how state-owned, private, collective, and joint ventures zigzag forward in the tide of economic system reform.
Where the east wind of the times blows, the trajectory of life will lead.
Regarding this point, the feelings of the characters in "The Long Season" must be no less than half a point less than Xu Banxia, Song Yunhui and others.
I used to be with the factory day and night, and I lived a plain and comfortable life every day. But one day, a wave of layoffs came in.
This high-reputation suspense drama with a score of 9.4 on Douban, the focus of the first is suspense, but what makes the audience have endless memories lies in the use of its human growth shots, which is also called "The Long Season".
The throes of reform not only act on the moment that happens, but also change the mentality and life of everyone who has experienced laid-off tides for a long time.
Even in "Hurricane", we can find the shadow of the 90s. While the reform of state-owned enterprises unleashed the vitality of the market, it also gave rise to problems such as layoffs, giving birth to the social image of "Jiuchang Street" where Gao Qiqiang lived. Some of the "children" have become beneficiaries of the reform and have become entrepreneurs. Some of the "children" have become the bottom of the society and are shaving food in the grassroots market.
And when the camera then turns to the northwest countryside in the 90s shown in "Mountains and Seas", it is a different style. Different from the once glorious industrial provinces of Northeast China, and unlike Jiangsu and Zhejiang, which have undergone rapid economic system reform, the living habits of facing the loess and facing the sky for thousands of years have not changed, staging another meaning of "Chinese folding".
The simplicity carries the hardships of rural life, which makes the texture of the drama as rough as the skin of the people in the play.
That's why people were impressed and trembled by the tearful expression on their faces.
The wheels of the times are rolling forward, some people leave their hometowns to work in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen to find hope for life, and some people stick to the countryside and change their fate with persistent and tenacious struggle.
If "Flowers" is a steaming history of the growth of a petty bourgeois city, "The Wind Blows in the Summer" and "The Years of the Great River Are Like Songs" are the history of the take-off of Zhejiang's private economy in the 90s. Then "The Long Season", which was sad about the desolate Northeast laid-off tide in the 90s, presented a desolate and heavy saxophone to the former "eldest son of the republic", and "Mountains and Seas" is a history of rural poverty alleviation that has never given up hope and has the taste of earth.
Also in China in the 90s, people in different regions experienced very different lives.
On the land of 9.6 million square kilometers of China, there is a folding of China that we have never felt. Perhaps the pace of social development is progressive and fast, but the joys and sorrows are not the same.
And these are presented by film and television dramas with vibrant lens artistic expression, restoring for us a 90s era with filters removed.
The narrative of home and country from the perspective of film and television
Bridging history with the present
In recent years, the creation of main theme film and television dramas has always been the mainstream pursued by the industry, among which there are not a few highlights, and these high-quality dramas set in the 90s, some are the main theme themes, and some are not, but these dramas also rely on the narrative of the country in creation, which makes the audience boil.
At a time when the post-95s and post-00s have become the main force of the Internet, looking back at the 90s from the drama, we may be able to better understand how the rivers of the times are surging, and how the accumulation and precipitation finally shape the current form of life, affecting the ups and downs of the fate of a generation.
Today, Shanghai's efforts to build an international metropolis have not stopped, and it has been the most desirable Chinese city for foreigners for 11 consecutive years.
But in the past 30 years, the city's bustling heart has quietly changed. Although there are not a few friends who follow the food illustrated book in "Flowers" to check in the time-honored brands of Shanghai Huanghe Road. However, it is an indisputable reality that the time-honored brands on the Yellow River Road are withering away day by day, and there are few of them.
When young Internet celebrity bloggers check in and visit the store, they can only appreciate the former style of this street from the interview mouth of the retired eldest sister and aunt.
And from the nostalgic tone of the grandparents, we can also feel the nostalgia of a generation hidden in the changes in the city center.
In "The Wind Blows Banxia", Xu Banxia first purchased scrap steel from the Northeast, and then proudly accepted laid-off skilled workers from the Northeast to his factory. Although the Northeast is not the main battlefield of Xu Banxia's struggle, in the first half of the series, we can also feel the glory and prosperity of the former Northeast Industrial Base.
This kind of loneliness is magnified to the extreme in "The Long Season" through the drifting of the individual fate of Biao Zi and others.
Reading this loneliness, we can also understand why Harbin's current expectations for small potatoes in the south come from, which is not only due to the economic growth of "6 billion in 3 days", but also from the excitement of the Northeast Big Brother, who has experienced the highlight moment of the "eldest son of the republic" and the sad memory of the laid-off wave.
At the moment of the "Erbin" cultural tourism fever, young netizens also spontaneously justified their hometown under various hot posts, and spontaneously told the glorious history of the "eldest son of the republic" participating in national construction in the mouth of grandparents.
And if film and television dramas are used as an axis, more interesting and meaningful themes of the times are about to emerge. From the transformation of the northwest countryside in "Mountains and Seas", to the rural poverty alleviation in "Happiness to Ten Thousand Homes", and then to the rural revitalization in "The Courtyard of the County Party Committee", a magnificent history of rural struggle and butterfly change jumped in front of the audience.
The trilogy of "Big River", which spanned six years, is also a vivid interpretation of the struggles of small people in different periods, reflecting the shape of the blueprint for economic change in the big era. The appearance of the characters in the play seems to have made a footnote for the 70s and 90s, and their life experiences are not only full of rich historical atmosphere, but also contain far-reaching practical implications.
Well-textured film and television dramas are the kaleidoscope of the times. Those vibrant, passionate stories of symbolism and hope can still make people feel captivating. Those heavy, withered, and faded stories with the times, film and television dramas are also careful to brush away the dust of history for them. In the 90s, the parallel China where transportation and the Internet were not very developed, in this way, had the most real and objective landing in film and television dramas.