As we’ve discussed in the past, Hong Kong filmmaker Wong Kar Wai (“In The Mood For Love”) is something of a man of mystery, and you never know exactly what’s coming when. Couple that with the lost in translation news out of China to America, and it can be a game of telephone. That said, Wong Kar Wai’s new television series, “Blossoms Shanghai,” looks like it’s approaching completion, if not done already, and the first trailer has been released. Naturally, it looks rather sumptuous and luxuriant in its visual splendor.
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Not a ton is known about the series, but Chinese star Hu Ge (“The Wild Goose Lake,” “The Climbers”) will lead the series and play a young opportunist with a troubled past as he ventures to the gilded city of Shanghai. Based on Jin Yucheng’s award-winning Shanghai-set novel, “Blossoms,” the series also marks a return for Wong’s Shanghai birthplace, and he will direct at least the pilot episode. It is currently unknown if he directed more.
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The director initially described the series as the third part of the romantic “In The Mood For Love” and “2046,” but a source I talked to who worked with Wong Kar-Wai in the past year cautioned that things could change and that may not be accurate. “Wait and see” is what I was told should be the presumption with all WKW projects because they are always in fluid evolution (like the Criterion Collection box-set where WKW basically changed the look of all the films in it, essentially because he felt like he could).
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Many WKW projects were announced over the last year years, but none of them came to fruition; an Amazon series called “Tong Wars,” an 18-part online series which may or may not be the same project, a Gucci fashion/family dynasty story produced by Annapurna’s Megan Ellison, and then “Blossoms Shanghai” which was originally supposed to be called “Blossoms.” It was a film at first and then a TV series that leads up to a film, and then, well, just a series, it seems, so yes, Wong Kar Wai projects seem to be in a constant state of flux. Lost in Film that found the new “Blossoms Shanghai” teaser says it’s due in 2022, and who knows, but that also sounds right, given the Asian auteur moves at a very deliberate pace. More info when it arrives.