John Hart

(I'll warn you when this review drifts into spoiler territory.)

My first C-Drama was RUYI'S ROYAL LOVE IN THE PALACE back during Covid. I consider it a 'long form' series which means more than 12 episodes, and it's still the best long form series I've seen out of over 30 series. BLOSSOMS SHANGHAI had the potential to beat it, but dropped the ball in the final episodes. Fortunately, the ball is merely a small marble.

I like to follow actors around, and RUYI's Xin Zhi Lei (Princess Jia) brought me to BLOSSOMS SHANGHAI. I've seen her play various roles, but her strength is duplicitous vixen. Or sweetheart serpent. In this story she's a WEAPON and deployed perfectly in each frame. This series should land her some great roles in the future.

Thanks to TO THE WONDER (best short form C-Drama I've ever seen) and INTERLACED SCENES, I also came to this series to see Ma Yi Li. Anything she's in is gold and she doesn't disappoint. She's full of her usual passion, emotion, and broken dreams.

I see from her many credits that Tiffany Tang is legend, but she's a new actress for me. She had absolutely no problem sharing the limelight alongside Xin Zhi Lei and Ma Yi Li. I particularly enjoyed when she delivered lines with food in her mouth, lol. I will try to watch some her work soon.

Anyone who is a fan of world class strong female leads MUST SEE this show. To have them all in one show is a WOW.

Also new to me was none other than our lead male playing Mr. Bao, Hu Ge. In this series he's doing his best to be the Chinese George Clooney. Hu Ge plays a local legend in Shanghai, a man that can survive anything.

He survives the roaring 90's stock market. He prospers in various businesses. Under the guidance of the charming Uncle Ye he can handle almost anything: except the three aforementioned women. And one I haven't mentioned yet.

(Entering light spoiler territory)

You see, Blossoms Shanghai is a highly unique and perfectly executed love quadrangle. But by 'perfectly executed,' I don't mean it's as lovey-dovey as you'd expect. Some consider this a serious shortcoming of the series. I actually found it refreshing, realistic, and poignantly moving for true love to be so unrequited all over the place.

Kind-hearted romantic C-Dramas have a way of pairing up all sorts of characters into couples at the end. Nobody leaves 'the prom' without a date.

But in BLOSSOMS, I felt for every woman who felt Mr. Bao was out of her reach -- just as -- I felt for Mr. Bao who had a woman (or two?) always out of his reach. Uncle Ye made a point of repeating that you can't mix business with pleasure, and man did this series slam that idea home.

Great credit is due to the legendary film director Wong Kar Wai and the cinematography. This claustrophobic series lurks behind behind walls, peeks thru windows -- and yet -- manages to put you alongside these characters as well.

You will not only love every lead in this series but outright adore every supporting character. I mean every one of them, including the cigarette guy. The depth to these characters is why the show takes about 5 or so episodes to get rolling.

These people become your family and you'll miss almost all of them at series end. I'm certain most of these actors will never look this good again. The camera work and lighting and staging and costumes and set design is off the map great.

I wasn't familiar with the period pop songs throughout but they added to the carefully crafted atmosphere. And I enjoyed the Morricone inspired moments in the soundtrack score.

So why not a perfect 10 score? (9.5 isn't bad, mind you!)

1. The story is (kinda) much ado about nothing. It's a soap opera of sorts, that focuses mostly on money instead of mating. So this series bounces people off each other instead of lips. I made up a term for this series: People Opera. And it's a really great People Opera. But at the end of the day, it's just a story about a man, a street, everyone on it and their country -- trying to grow in stature. As Tina Turner once said, "What's love got to do with it?"

2. The other shortcoming is that the story kinda chickened out at the end, in the romance sense. As great as the final goodbye was between Mr. Bao and Li Li in Ep 27, I felt these two had a little more to say to each other -- about each other -- and I felt cheated. I felt this broken heart's club needed a first kiss -- that was tragically their last kiss as well.

3. Also, the final shots of Mr. Bao in the fields with electrical transmission towers simply didn't land right for me. The way we saw Miss Wang slowly leave Huange Street -- chatting with the cigarette dude -- is really how Mr. Bao needed to leave the series. His buying land thing came off as flat and irrelevant.

4. Also, the show hinted that the new elevator operator was like a young Ah Bao and that Bao was transitioning into an Uncle Ye. Perhaps they should have pursed that literally, by Bao saying goodbye to that street and inviting the young man to join his land venture. By inviting the boy off that street that seems to destroy lives, it would be a sign that the one thing Bao doesn't recommend is becoming a Mr. Bao.

And now some picky stuff --

1. The story starts with a car accident, to explain the real world scars on Hu Ge's face he got from a tragic car accident that nearly killed him. But I didn't know that until deep in the series. And so I was confused as to why Bao's face had those scars in flashbacks the occurred before the story's car accident. These needed to either be digitally removed, or explained away regarding a childhood bully who beat him senseless. It was lazy and jarring to leave the scars there.

2. Li Li's last words to Bao are her name. She says 'Li Li' and then runs up some stairs. Huh? Normally her departure might have inspired him to say 'Li Li' as in he had something more to say to her. It demonstrated to me that as amazing as this goodbye scene was -- and totally worth rewatching -- WKW still didn't quite nail this scene as I suggested earlier. Like the scars, it was just sloppy.

3. The series starts slow. Despite the appearance of a frenetic pace, it introduces a ton of characters and it takes -- I don't know -- 5 to 7 episodes to become addictive.

OVERALL: drop what you're doing and watch BLOSSOMS SHANGHAI. It's an extremely special experience.