There’s now a trailer for Wong Kar-wai’s “Blossoms”, with lots of Chinese TV stars in the cast. I Would presume a 2023 airing, maybe even a Cannes world premiere.
This does not look like anything the venerable Chinese filmmaker would have made more than a decade ago, it looks .. slick and mainstream. However, it’s visually stunning to look at.
Nobody, and I do mean nobody, was as hot a director on the foreign circuit as Wong Kar-wai in the '90s and '00s. During that time he went on a stretch that was one of the greatest in modern cinematic history: "Chungking Express," "Fallen Angels," "Happy Together," and, the peak of it all, "In the Mood For Love." He oddly enough followed the latter up with a mesmerizing sequel entitled "2046," which, as it stands, is the last, industry-shaking, indisputably great movie he's released.
What was supposed to be Wong’s next movie has turned into a TV series and will be an adaptation of Jin Yuchen’s novel “Blossoms.” Here’s the synopsis:
"Following the lives of Shanghai residents from the end of China’s Cultural Revolution in the early ‘60s through the end of the 20th century, with some scenes set in San Francisco." Wong further elaborated his personal connection to that film saying “Shanghai is my hometown and the time that the book describes is the time of my absence from Hong Kong because I went to Hong Kong when I was 19, in ’63, I hadn’t been back to Shanghai until the early nineties. This is my opportunity for me to fill in all the things that I have missed.”
This is hopeful news for Wong fans who have been a little down about his last few ventures. Here's hoping he gives us something special, we all know that talent and vision don't go away just like that and that it was only a decade ago he gave us the beautiful, transcendent duo of "In The Mood For Love," and its sequel "2046." The saying goes "you can never count an auteur out," especially one as unique and special as Wong Kar-Wai.
The 64-year-old-director has been in a bit of a funk of late, it started with his first foray in English-language features, 2007's misbegotten "My Blueberry Nights," which had, of all people, singer-songwriter Norah Jones as the lead and played like a desperate greatest hits of his better more rewarding features.
He followed that one with the most un-Wong Kar-Wai movie imaginable, "The Grandmaster," a kung-fu action epic starring Ziyi Zhang. Both films garnered mixed reviews. It didn't help that his longtime DP Christopher Doyle was sensing that something was indeed off with the director, telling The Guardian "You do realize that you have basically said what you needed to say, so why say more? I think you have to move on." Yikes.
The short version: "Woman Unknown" was a compromise. The jury deadlocked over "Possible Love" and "NAZA," not able to com to terms, fell back on their #3, May el-Toukhy's film.