For our Series Mania 2026 issue, we dive into Wong Kar Wai’s Blossoms Shanghai.
Wong Kar Wai is one of the defining figures of Hong Kong cinema’s “Second New Wave” and one of the leading directors of world cinema. Having not released a feature-length film since The Grandmaster (Yi dai zong shi) in 2013, Wong Kar Wai makes an epic return with his first-ever television series, Blossoms Shanghai. The 30-episode series, which premiered in China in 2023 and reached record-breaking viewership numbers, is now opening to international audiences via MUBI.
As an auteur, Wong Kar Wai brought a distinct artistic dimension to Hong Kong cinema. With his unique cinematic language, he foregrounds a kind of poetic sensibility on screen. In an environment where kung-fu films were produced as part of a cultural factory, Wong Kar Wai chose a different path, leaving lasting impressions with his intense scenes about loneliness, melancholy, love, and memory.
Especially through the trilogy formed by Days of Being Wild, In the Mood for Love, and 2046, the director depicts suspended lovers, sensual energy, and romance with an extraordinary aesthetic. At the same time, he frequently draws on the sense of confinement experienced by modern individuals. LGBTQ+ themes, the search for identity, and problems of belonging are also among the defining motifs in his cinema.
He adds a wide color palette, neon lights, mysterious encounters, and sophisticated music to his stories, but the main character is always Hong Kong. When we look at the historical and political background of his cinema, which focuses on fleeting moments, Hong Kong stands out as a special metaphor.
Hong Kong, which the United Kingdom handed over to China in 1997, functions as a special administrative region governed under the principle of “one country, two systems.” One of the wealthiest regions in the world, Hong Kong also represents a duality in Wong Kar Wai’s use of time and space. Indeed, Chungking Express greets viewers as one of the most striking allegories of this duality.
The most beautiful love stories, the most romantic moments, and the most melancholic bursts of emotion are experienced in Hong Kong’s glittering streets, within its crowds, and in its authentic locations. For Wong Kar Wai’s characters, the landscapes of Hong Kong also function as an inseparable home. Despite all temporal leaps, journeys, and dreams, the narrative always returns to Hong Kong.
That is why we need to really understand the China and Hong Kong dualism when looking at the essence of Wong Kar Wai’s cinema. The fact that Wong Kar Wai was born in Shanghai and grew up in Hong Kong after his family migrated there also explains this inherent connection. Blossoms Shanghai relates directly to this background and to the rebirth of today’s superpower China during the 1990s.
CHINA’S PROCESS OF OPENING-UP, REFORMS, AND THE SHIFTING AXIS OF POWER
Founded in 1949 by the revolutionary leader Mao Zedong, the People’s Republic of China maintained a closed economic structure until 1978. Mao’s emphasis on mass mobilization and class struggle continued until his death. After the death of Mao, Deng Xiaoping, who assumed political power and became the head of the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), led the process of opening up and the reforms that enabled China to become a major economic center.
The reforms and opening-up policies initiated during Deng Xiaoping’s leadership eventually became components defining Chinese socialism. China’s planned economic model was transformed into what is officially called a “socialist market economy.” Price controls were relaxed, foreign direct investment was allowed, and special economic zones were established. In 1990, both the Shanghai Stock Exchange and the Shenzhen Stock Exchange were founded, creating a capital markets system.
The reopening of the Shanghai Stock Exchange in the 1990s in particular played a crucial role in consolidating the development of China’s capital markets. Today one of the largest stock exchanges in the world, its reactivation during the second phase of reforms in the 1990s represented a significant structural shift.
Truthfully, by combining Marxist theories and Soviet-style large-scale industrialization with the capitalist world, China built the fastest-growing and most sustainable economy of the past forty years, challenging the global hegemony of the United States.
With major advances in innovation, technological development, and the sheer scale of its domestic market, China has stood out globally. Strategic sectors such as banking, energy, and telecommunications remain largely under state ownership. Operating through a mechanism that ensures continuity between state and market, China has altered the global axis of power and emerged as a key winner in an era where globalization theses and cultural imperialism appear to be losing ground.
China stood out especially with major advances in innovation, technological development, and the sheer scale of its domestic market, and created a miracle and changed the global axis of power with a system where strategic sectors such as banking, energy, and telecommunications remain largely under state ownership. Operating through a mechanism that ensures continuity between state and market, China emerged as a key winner in an era where globalization theses and cultural imperialism appear to be losing ground.
WONG KAR WAI’S RETURN TO SHANGHAI AND HIS ROMANTIC LONGINGS
Returning to Blossoms Shanghai, the series centers on China’s opening-up process and the reactivation of the Shanghai Stock Exchange. Adapted from Chinese author Jin Yucheng’s 2012 novel Blossoms, the series also symbolizes Wong Kar Wai’s return to his childhood and to China.
Upon publication, the novel won numerous awards in China and drew attention as a comprehensive literary work about Shanghai. Spanning two timelines between the 1960s and the 1990s, it is filled with vivid descriptions, exploratory mappings, and colorful memories especially of Shanghai. At the same time, by probing the spirit of Shanghai, Blossoms offers a form of social satire where complex life stories intertwine.
As mentioned earlier, Wong Kar Wai acquired the rights to Blossoms long ago and has been working on it for years. In a cinematic landscape increasingly marked by homogenization and where Hollywood is losing its significance, because of the Epstein files and zionism, the need for an original auteur like Wong Kar Wai is stronger than ever.
Blossoms Shanghai answers this need and presents the flashy story of power games and money in 1990s Shanghai in an original manner. The series revolves around a network of relationships reminiscent of The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, and explores in layered fashion the consequences of the newly created wealth and dreams of social mobility.
At the same time, the story can also be compared to the narrative in The Wolf of Wall Street, where the living master auteur Martin Scorsese turns his gaze toward the towering skyline of New York. Adapted from the story of Jordan Belfort, the man behind one of the largest financial frauds in American history, the film has a main character with the same issues as Ah Bao in Blossoms Shanghai.
Both chasing quick wealth, their fates also bear notable similarities. In The Wolf of Wall Street, Scorsese moves from New York’s world-shaping financial markets toward their underground layers. Similarly, in Blossoms Shanghai, Wong Kar Wai journeys toward Shanghai’s mysterious roots, toward what happens behind the neon-lit elegance of stylish venues and encounters.
Wong Kar Wai’s distinctive narrative structure also turns Blossoms Shanghai into an experience that requires attentive viewing. The fragmented editing and narrative jumps in the first episode are a clever choice. Repeated narrative moments in each episode gradually reveal new details about the plot. In this way, the long-form epic melodrama expands with exciting surprises, while the secrets of Ah Bao’s past gradually come to light. This playful structure and flexible temporality also recall 2046. The production design, aesthetic choices, and stylization of the series are likewise very close to that film.
In conclusion, with Blossoms Shanghai, Wong Kar Wai brings his unique auteur vision to television and delivers a distinctly different work. The director’s China-Hong Kong duality, his romantic longings, and his intense emotional expression remain as strong as ever.
