[This article comes from the WeChat public account "Film and Television Dutongue" and is reprinted by The Paper with permission. Please contact "Film and Television Dutongue" for reprinting. 】
"Flowers" has ended, but the traffic is still boiling. Douban's score of 8.5 also means that it withstood the pressure and impressed the audience.
Ratings of the premiere of "Flowers" in Yangba (CVB)
After "Flowers" was aired, director Wong Kar-wai received a lot of praise. The public originally knew him as an artist. After this battle, he became an artist who can not only make good literary films but also gain commercial value. Actors such as Hu Ge, Ma Yili, Tang Yan, Xin Zhilei, Dong Yong, etc. have also been reshaped in the hearts of the audience.
However, Qin Wen, the screenwriter of "Flowers", became "invisible" in the spotlight. A 30-episode drama like "Flowers" is bound to be inseparable from the clever weaving of the screenwriter. Wong Kar-wai is the heart and soul of "Flowers" and controls everything. But Qin Wen, as a mature screenwriter, also played a role that cannot be underestimated.
The day after "Flowers" ended, Film and Television had a conversation with screenwriter Qin Wen.
At that time, Qin Wen was on vacation in Thailand. She said that when she was in China, she would always pay attention to Tencent videos unconsciously, and she couldn't decide to write a new script, so she decided to go out and relax. During the chat, Qin Wen talked about her experience working with director Wong Kar-Wai, the difficulties encountered in the script creation process, and the various people and events in the play.
Qin Wen
It turns out that Wong Kar-wai is not only a sentimental director, but also a meticulous textual critic. In order to make "Flowers" a success, he did a lot of desk work. Before the art director joined the team, Wong Kar-wai prepared four bookshelves of materials.
It turns out that the original author Jin Yucheng was also present when the script was conceived in the early stage. When the first few episodes were aired, netizens said that "Flowers" was suspected of "magic reform". Maybe Jin Yucheng himself knew about this "magic reform".
Qin Wen said that store names such as Jingxiu and Guoke came from the small shops near her alma mater, the Central Academy of Drama. She also said that it is unclear whether there will be a movie version of "Flowers" as the director has his own arrangements.
The following is the account of Qin Wen, the screenwriter of "Flowers".
script
I was pleasantly surprised when I received a call from director Wong Kar-Wai.
It was September 2017, not long after "The First Half of My Life" finished airing. A friend contacted me and said that the director wanted to meet me. I had already read the novel "Flowers", but I never expected that the director would approach me. The novel "Flowers" is more masculine, and it is a story about an older generation, so I wanted to talk about it first.
When we met, Teacher Jin Yucheng was also there. Later I guessed that maybe because "The First Half of My Life" was doing well and the director wanted to find a Shanghai writer, there weren't many people to choose from.
I had other work on hand at the time, so we chatted on and off.
After meeting the director at the end of 2017, I have been working on my ideas until the beginning of 2019. The director had long thought of letting Hu Ge play the roles of A Bao, Hu Sheng, and Xiao Mao Sanjia, and presented them in the form of three units.
In the end we decided to write Abao’s story first. The director said that Xiao Mao's story is more macroscopic, Hu Sheng's story is more sinister, and A Bao's story is more extensive.
"Flowers" stills
Although the director praised me for my good writing and sent the "assignment" to Teacher Jin from the first time I "handed in my homework", I have always been worried about whether I was qualified for this job. He always encouraged me and said that you write very well, just write if it doesn't matter.
Director Wong Kar-Wai is a very cautious person. My personal habit is to write the episodes first. Once the scripts are written for the episodes, there will definitely be no problem. However, the director needs to see the episode-by-episode script first, otherwise he will not be sure of the feasibility of the characters and the story. I started writing scripts in 2019. When I handed in the script for one episode, the director felt that the characters and scenes were solid.
The script keeps flipping. I’ve finished writing five episodes, and I’m starting over from the beginning. I've finished writing nine episodes and it feels wrong, so I have to start over. This process went through many times. Fortunately, I am not someone who is afraid of overthrowing and rebuilding. When working with the director, I also thought about the possibility of writing it several times. Plus, he kept encouraging me, so I kept writing.
Qin Wen
Later, I concluded that other directors usually need about 13,000 words for an episode, but he only needs 9,000-10,000 words to shoot a full episode. This reduces work stress to a certain extent.
The script began to be written episode by episode in 2019. At that time, I was not sure how many episodes I would write. Before officially entering script creation, Mr. Jin Yucheng came frequently to share the origins of relevant content in the novel "Flowers" and mostly recalled the personnel habits of that era. After I started writing the script, Teacher Jin didn’t come often.
You asked me when the script was finished. In fact, we have no concept of finishing it. From the beginning of the script to the completion of filming, I kept writing. I lived on set during the filming period. Before starting production, I wrote at least five drafts of the script, some of which lasted nine episodes, some which lasted for more than ten episodes, and some which were just two episodes short of finishing. Every edition changes a lot.
The director once joked with me that you should keep all these scripts. People often say that your works will last a lifetime, but this play will last a lifetime.
Wen Zhaolun and Qin Wen
When it started, the script was basically complete. But I know there is a lot to change. I have never made such revisions before. I always shoot after the draft is submitted. When I came to "Flowers", I had to stay on the set all the time. Not only me, a stock consultant was also on the set for a while.
Director Wong Kar-Wai is used to thinking about how to make changes while filming. He wants to see the condition of the actors. If the actors are in good condition in this scene, they may be in the same state in subsequent scenes. This scene is very interesting. Can there be two more related scenes later? A single move affects the whole body. If the front is changed, the back must also be changed.
The crew starts work at noon. The director sleeps very little, so he is used to reviewing the content of the next day's shooting with me in the morning. When he was away from work, I would revise the script in the hotel. Sometimes I will go directly to the scene with the printer.
However, if the script is changed, every line on the flying pages that the director requires is definitely feasible. Maybe there will be changes on the scene depending on the specific situation, but the flying pages themselves must be accurate in my case.
I also followed the whole process later. Everyone says that director Wong Kar-Wai's script was polished repeatedly and even completed on the editing table. This is not true at all. This is the first time since I started working as a screenwriter that I have followed a drama from beginning to end.
Sophisticated
The director was very well prepared in advance. Like stocks and foreign trade, when I didn't join the team, he was doing research.
I trade stocks myself. My husband is an old stock investor. In the 1990s, my mother also traded stocks. Of course, I don’t quite understand the concept of professionalism in the 1990s. We hired teacher Ying Jianzhong as a stock consultant.
He is a native of Shanghai. He has worked as a lawyer, a manager of a stock company, and he also writes novels. Teacher Ying knows the difference between drama and reality. He will tell you in detail that this matter can be written like this, and the professional terms at that time said this.
In addition to answering our questions face to face, Teacher Ying also wrote a manuscript of about 200,000 words in the form of questions and answers, covering almost all the big names and events in the stock market in the 1990s.
Interview with "Flowers"
In the early 1990s, this time had been set long ago. As for choosing 92, 93 or 94, you need to calculate carefully.
Push back from the time when the subscription certificate was listed, and incorporate relevant historical events, including the completion of the Oriental Pearl Tower. In 1993, when I was 11 years old, the completion of the Oriental Pearl Tower was a particularly big event in Shanghai. At that time, Shanghai did not have such a tall landmark building, which meant that "Pudong" has risen since then.
Director Wong Kar-wai is a textual critic. He wanted to know what happened every day in Shanghai in the 1990s. When the art teacher joined the group, the director prepared four bookshelves of materials. When I went there, there was a corresponding booklet for each topic. It might be a restaurant on Huanghe Road, or it might be a stamp.
Ending credits of "Flowers"
Teacher Ying Jianzhong’s books inspired me a lot. He wrote about that era, the way of language at that time, the relationship between people at that time, and the Shanghai stock market at that time, all of which were well restored. He himself kept telling me what Shanghai was like at that time.
We used Teacher Mu Xin's "Shanghai Fu" at the beginning of the episode with Uncle Ye (played by You Benchang). Teacher Feng Lun's "Savage Growth" shares his entrepreneurial experience. The "three wallets" in the play, as well as some golden lines about business wars, are all based on this. He has experienced the ups and downs of the business market and has some psychological insights of his own.
Writing a script directed by Wong Kar-Wai takes a lot of time and has to worry about details. Although I usually have the pressure to write the script, the final burden has to be shouldered by the director. Some scenes I said weren’t going to work, but the director said it was okay and we’ll see how we can do it. The dramatic structure and character relationships of the entire play were figured out bit by bit along the characters' personalities.
Abao
How did Abao become Mr. Bao?
Before I joined the team, the director sent two research teams to conduct research on the foreign trade line and the stock market line in the 1990s. Foreign trade and stocks should be prepared by the director in advance.
In fact, many people had serious jobs when they started trading stocks. Including the majority of people in large households, they may work in other industries, and some are office workers, who speculate in stocks when they have free time. We have studied and discussed that many large investors have been doing their own jobs. At that time, people always said that stock trading was not a serious matter.
Screenshot of "Flowers"
But in that era, the biggest possibility of a comeback was stocks. For Mr. Bao, foreign trade is the foundation and can also be said to be a safe channel. But you must have principal, and stocks provided Abao with the first pot of gold.
After Xuezhi (played by Du Juan) left, Abao has been doing small business, doing whatever he wants to make money. He never thought about getting ahead and thought that making some money would be enough. But when Xuezhi told him that I now earn 20,000 yuan a month, he suddenly realized that the gap between the two was very big.
The director read a book that said that a mainland businessman went to Hong Kong and had a cup of coffee and some snacks at the Peninsula Hotel. At that time, mainlanders thought these things only cost a few yuan, but the Peninsula Hotel cost hundreds of yuan. The businessman couldn't get the money out of it, other people just bought it. Xuezhi told A Bao that when she earned 20,000 yuan a month, she had a huge impact on A Bao.
He saw the gap but also the possibilities.
"Flowers" stills
A Bao in the novel is a person who "walks through thousands of flowers without even a leaf touching him." This is what Abao relies on in the play.
I did consider who to choose as Abao, because I write a lot of popular TV series, so I definitely have to ask where the emotional direction is. As I wrote and wrote, I gradually understood what the director said, love and love are different, and filming love is not his ultimate goal. Regardless of his age, experience or knowledge, this matter is too young.
Teacher Jin Yucheng wrote in the novel that flowers never bloom in a hundred days. The director often tells us this. It is written in the novel, "The relationship between men and women comes from the right time and place. If there is a difference, it will be empty." These ideas may be consistent with what the director wants to express.
"Flowers"
The origins of our stories and characters all come from "Flowers".
Directors often say, never change your shape when you move. The so-called concepts of time and Buddhism in the book are also discussed in the play.
The original work is very large and the relationships between the characters are complex. We have to find a suitable expression method for the TV series. We can only pick one or two flowers from the flowers and cut them out to let them grow and flourish.
When I was chatting with Teacher Jin, I said that "Flowers" is a big universe. Today we filmed Abao, and tomorrow someone may use other forms to show Hu Sheng, Xiao Mao, and Tao Tao.
"Flowers" stills
Lingzi (played by Ma Yili) knows that it is unlikely that Mr. Bao will get married. In my opinion, age is a factor, and since Reiko is so smart, she must know that Bao is always grateful and repaying her. If you don't communicate with Mr. Bao by asking for money, the connection between the two will be even less.
In a previous draft of the script, we tried to show Reiko running a bad business in Tokyo, and Boss Bao would often come to mend the holes. She would say bluntly that if the management was good, Boss Bao would not come.
This is the way she and Mr. Bao get entangled. If they can't get entangled, there will still be some luck.
But in fact, she had been preparing to be clear-cut and to be the master of the family. She had always reserved this ability for herself, but she didn't expect this day to come so suddenly.
In the early script, Miss Wang (played by Tang Yan) accepted Mr. Bao's help. As Mr. Fan said, accept first and then return the favor. The director still hopes that Xiao Wang will complete this jump by himself. In the end, the director came up with the idea of using foreign exchange mergers to solve the problem.
"Flowers" stills
Li Li (played by Xin Zhilei) was very decisive. She had no boss. In fact, the three women are very decisive. What we want to talk about is never who helps whom or who relies on whom, but rather seeing ourselves in the relationships between people.
Li Li and Mr. Bao saw each other. In the rivalry scene between Miss Wang and Mr. Bao, she also saw what she should do. The same goes for Reiko.
All external things are preparation for the inside. Li Li and Mr. Bao were once very close in spirit and seemed to be together, but in the end they were not together. Although their bodies are not together, when two people can have distance and tranquility, it is another kind of commonality.
Li Li's decision to become a monk was final, and this is how the novel ends. Teacher Jin told us the story of Li Li prototype, and we liked it very much. We often bring up the original book to talk about it, and the director’s book has been torn through.
"Flowers" stills
I was there for the scene where Lu Meilin (played by Fan Tiantian) beat Mr. Bao. Hit very hard. We were very nervous when we were playing, but the director was very calm. He seemed to be always calm. When I was writing, I couldn't quite imagine how this scene would be shot. I thought it might be a borrowed position or something. Everyone was also very curious and went to watch it during the filming.
Fan Tiantian recounted the situation at the time in the interview. Before filming started, the director took her hand and hit her face hard, causing her hand to burn.
The director told her seriously that even if you use such force, the effect will not be achieved if you don't use force. Don't stop fighting hard just because you feel sorry for Hu Ge. After rehearsing and preparing, the scene passed by. (The author adds: Because it had to be shot from different angles, Fan Tantan was called back after a while for reshoots.)
"Flowers" stills
There used to be many stores like Jingxiu in Shanghai. The whole show needs a place like this, and there has to be a place for gossip on Yellow River Road. The office is a tea room, and Shanghai is a cigarette and paper shop. Some things are discussed in narration, and some things are gossiped about. Jingxiu, Guoke, and the Binpeng Business Building of Ms. Wang’s company are all named after the small shops near the Central Theater.
The Night Tokyo Brawl is a very staged scene. People with different personalities in the same scene, little things start to ferment, and the relationship between the characters changes drastically.
The Battle of Yellow River Road was shot with a full cinematic feel. After the script was written, it was already pretty good to watch. However, because several lines were interspersed at the same time, the rhythm was not well grasped. The director adjusted the scripts of these three episodes and cut them in and out. In some places, I add a little, and in some places, I subtract two sentences.
When I saw the adjusted script, I was already on my knees. The rhythm was so good. The Battle of the Yellow River Road is interspersed with multiple lines and scenes, and the Night in Tokyo is a dramatic change in the relationship between the characters in the same group of people and the same scene.
"Flowers" stills
For the role of Master Fan, when we were writing the script, we wanted to ask Teacher Fan Zhiyi to play it. Is there anyone more suitable than him? He was very serious when filming, and the director kept praising him for his good acting.
Teacher Fan also told me that the director often asked me to pay attention to the movements of the actors next to me, and I knew it, because when we play football, we pay attention to using our peripheral vision.
Yellow River Road is a river and lake. You said you saw the taste of a martial arts drama, maybe because the director and I both like martial arts. Our love for martial arts, the morality and friendship of the world, will make us subconsciously express it.
The director never mentioned the movie version to me, he basically dealt with these matters himself. I am writing an urban drama, and "Flowers" takes up too much time. Next, I will focus on urban emotional female dramas.
