Wong Kar Wai’s 30-part tv epic “Blossoms Shanghai” will stream on the Criterion Channel later this 12 months, marking the U.S. debut of the auteur’s first-ever sequence. The North American launch extends the worldwide rollout of the undertaking, which beforehand secured distribution by way of Mubi throughout Europe, Latin America, India and Turkey.

The sequence, tailored from Jin Yucheng’s award-winning 2013 novel, follows the rise of Ah Bao – described because the “Jay Gatsby of Shanghai” – as he navigates the town’s roaring Nineteen Nineties financial growth. Mixing sprawling character arcs with Wong’s signature visible magnificence, the present clocked in at practically 25 hours of display time when it aired in China in late 2023.

“Blossoms Shanghai” premiered on Tencent Video and CCTV-8, the place it grew to become a serious rankings and streaming success.

“I’m thrilled to proceed my long-standing relationship with Criterion with the North American debut of my first sequence,” Wong mentioned in an announcement. “The sequence captures the vitality of Shanghai’s roaring ’90s, revealing common human truths about need and future.”

Internationally, Mubi has acquired rights to the sequence in a number of key territories together with France, Germany, Italy, Switzerland, Austria, Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Brazil and India. Dates for Mubi’s rollout haven’t but been introduced.

“Blossoms Shanghai” dominated the Magnolia Awards on the 2024 Shanghai Tv Pageant, choosing up honors for greatest tv sequence, actor (Hu Ge), cinematography, artwork course and tailored screenplay.

The undertaking reunites Wong with longtime collaborators together with manufacturing designer William Chang and cinematographer Peter Pau. It’s extensively thought-about the concluding work in a casual Shanghai trilogy that additionally contains “Within the Temper for Love” and “2046.” Whereas these earlier movies filtered the reminiscence and mythology of Shanghai by means of displaced characters in Nineteen Sixties Hong Kong and an imagined future, “Blossoms Shanghai” locations the town itself on the heart.