Ah Bao’s (Hu Ge) word is gold in Blossoms Shanghai, director and producer Wong Kar Wai’s return to television. Some of Wong’s images are of people lining up to buy Shanghai Fashion stocks which Ah Bao backs. He makes those interactions through telephone while remembering that his old friends still have their life changing moments. He’s there for Tao Tao (Chen Long) as the latter has to fight people off at a hospital of all places. But the stock world beckons, as the show reminds its viewers of the real people who are in charge. These people have to decide whether or not to help him or his rival, Mr. Qiang (Huang Jue). Speaking of rivals, Miss Wang (Tang Yan) balances her success while managing her business partner Mr. Wei (Ryan Zheng).

I’m not sure how Eastern viewers received this show but there’s a disconnect between it and Western viewers. The reactions, regardless of where it’s coming from, are valid in seeing larger than life characters. Just like people in real life, characters can fall out but events can still ether them back together. That event happens to be Feng Mei’s miscarriage, which brings Ah Bao back to his core group of friends. His return gets him back around Ling Zi (Ma Yili), and they’re cordial, which makes me react ambivalently. I’m sure the feelings are still there, feelings that were on display a dozen episodes before these ones. Blossoms Shanghai are about people who are in their forties, broken, recovering, displaying age appropriate behaviour.

Nonetheless, Blossoms Shanghai is about business and it returns to Ah Bao, Mr. Qiang, and the power players. As I previously mentioned in other reviews, any show from anywhere will have characters too many to mention. This show is no exception, which means sometimes I have no room to write about certain groups of characters. I guess I’ll have to make time for the power players I hinted about, who are as old as Uncle Ye’s (You Benchang). They meet around a pool and make and receive calls to any younger up and comers who they’ll decide to help. They’re the ones who pop in and out to occasionally help Ah Bao and they do it for Shanghai Fashion’s stocks. These characters exist solely for Ah Bao to have a deus ex machina, feeling repetitive later on in the show’s arc.

Blossoms Shanghai may depict both the business world and friendships in ways that seem archetypal to us Western viewers. But, and maybe I’m contradicting myself here, it’s more mature in depicting the romantic relationships of these characters. Potentially, there can be three couples here and the show teases us on who Ah Bao ends up with. Will his reconciliation with Ling Zi lead to more or will he end up with someone who comes back? This show has elements of his soap opera past and his more recent decades as cinema’s beloved auteur. Characters here, just like in real life, find themselves in circumstances that make love less simple. Despite its genre, this show exposes some complexities and truth in characters forging their paths.

Blossoms Shanghai‘s last episodes are available to watch on the Criterion Channel on January 26.