A Brighter Summer Day

This article is about 1991 film. For 2002 album, see A Brighter Summer Day (album).
A Brighter Summer Day

Film poster
Directed by Edward Yang
Produced by Wei-yen Yu
Written by Hong-ya Yan
Ming-tang Lai
Shun-ching Yang
Edward Yang
Starring Chang Chen
Lisa Yang
Chang Kuo-Chu
Elaine Jin
Cinematography Hui-kung Chang
Long-yu Zhang
Edited by Bowen Chen
Production
company
Yang & His Gang Filmmakers
Jane Balfour Films
Distributed by Cine Qua Non Films
Release dates
  • July 27, 1991 (1991-07-27)
Running time
 237 minutes
Country Taiwan
Language Mandarin
Shanghainese
Taiwanese Hokkien

A Brighter Summer Day (Chinese: 牯嶺街少年殺人事件 Gǔ lǐng jiē shàonián shārén shìjiàn, "The Murder Incident of the Boy on Guling Street") is a 1991 Taiwanese drama film directed by Edward Yang. The film is an extraordinarily large project for a Chinese-language film, not only for its duration of almost four hours, but also for its involvement of more than 100 amateur actors in different roles. The title is derived from the lyrics of Elvis Presley's "Are You Lonesome Tonight?". The film was selected as the Taiwanese entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 64th Academy Awards but was not nominated.[1]

The film depicts a great array of political and existential themes such as the need of guidance during adolescence, the loss of Taiwan’s cultural identity in favour of the growingly influential Western culture, the unrestrained violence caused by an uneasy socio-political juncture, the desire of migrating towards an expectedly better country, the hardships of parenthood, the awkwardly naive and sometimes dangerous way in which teenagers convey love and sex, the downside of multi-faceted friendship, the strained differences between social classes forced to coexist in the same dismal place, and, especially, the fatal and irreversible consequences of an aimless life and a confused upbringing.

Plot

The plot of the movie is centered around Si'r. As he struggles with the temptations of good and evil, the movie goes back and forth with him. Small town, big dreams, lonesome lives, and lost love are all recurring themes of the plot.

Cast

Production

Set in early 1960s, in Taipei, the film is based on a real incident that the director remembers from his school days when he was 13.[2] The original Chinese title, 牯嶺街少年殺人事件, translates literally as "The Murder Incident of the Boy on Guling Street", referring to the 14-year-old son of a civil servant who murders his girlfriend, who was also involved with a teenaged gang leader, for unclear reasons. The gang leader and girlfriend are involved in the conflict between gangs of children of formerly-mainland families and those of Taiwanese families. The film places the murder incident in the context of the political environment in Taiwan at that time. The film's political background is introduced in intertitles thus:

Millions of Mainland Chinese fled to Taiwan with the National Government after its civil war defeat by the Chinese Communists in 1949. Their children were brought up in an uneasy atmosphere created by the parents' own uncertainty about the future. Many formed street gangs to search for identity and to strengthen their sense of security.[3]

Chang Kuo-Chu, and his son Chang Chen (in his debut) are both cast in this film.

Release

Restoration and home media

In 2009, the World Cinema Foundation issued a restoration of A Brighter Summer Day, using the original 35mm camera and sound negatives provided by the Edward Yang Estate.[4]

On December 17, 2015, The Criterion Collection announced the official North American DVD and Blu-ray release of a new 4K digital restoration of the film in its original running time. This release would mark the first time A Brighter Summer Day is released on home video in the United States, after more than two decades of obscurity due to difficulty in finding an official copy of the film. The release will include a new English subtitle translation, an audio commentary featuring critic Tony Rayns, an interview with actor Chen Chang; Our Time, Our Story, a 117-minute documentary from 2002 about the New Taiwan Cinema movement, featuring interviews with Yang and film-makers Hou Hsiao-hsien and Tsai Ming-liang, among others; a videotaped performance of director Edward Yang’s 1992 play Likely Consequence; an essay by critic Godfrey Cheshire, and a 1991 director’s statement by Yang.[5]

Critical reception

The film received much critical acclaim and was awarded several wins in Golden Horse Film Festival, Asia Pacific Film Festival, Kinema Junpo Awards and Tokyo International Film Festival. Three different versions of the film were edited: the original 237 minute version, a three-hour version and a shorter 127 minute version.[2]

A Brighter Summer Day is ranked number 98 in the prestigious list They Shoot Pictures, Don't They?, making it one of the most recent entries in the top 100; its position is presumed to rise after the release of the new digital restoration.[6] Additionally, according to They Shoot Pictures, Don't They?, A Brighter Summer Day is the most acclaimed film of 1991.[7]

Themes

According to film critic Godfrey Cheshire, the film has "two faces, just as it has two titles" due to the sudden change of plots the film experiences halfway its running time. A Brighter Summer Day notoriously shifts from a fraught, violent story about teenage gangs to a more introspective and family-oriented movie where the main character passively witness how his father is accused of espionage, his brother is in huge debt and his mother suffers in silence. Cheshire explains this transition of "faces" as it follows:

The “outward” face is a highly critical view of a society in which all proper authority—a very Confucian concern—has been eroded or undermined, so that a young man like Xiao Si’r can be hurled into the spiral of violence indicated by the film’s Chinese title, which translates as “The Youth Killing Incident on Guling Street,” referring to a notorious crime that inspired the film. The “inward” face, meanwhile, indicated by the lyrics of the 1960 Elvis Presley hit “Are You Lonesome Tonight?” which gives the film its English title, has little to do with Taiwan and much to do with a condition unbound by time or place: the loneliness, melancholy, and longing of adolescence. [8]

Accolades

See also

References

  1. ↑ Margaret Herrick Library, Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences
  2. 1 2 GULING JIE SHAONIAN SHA REN SHIJIAN Review (in English) by Nick James
  3. ↑ Anderson, John (2005). Edward Yang. ISBN 0-252-07236-7
  4. ↑ "World Cinema Project". The Film Foundation. The Film Foundation. Retrieved 19 March 2016.
  5. ↑ "A Brighter Summer Day (1991)". The Criterion Collection. The Criterion Collection. Retrieved 19 March 2016.
  6. ↑ http://www.theyshootpictures.com/gf1000_all1000films_table.php
  7. ↑ "The 1,000 Greatest Films (Full List)". They Shoot Pictures, Don't They?.
  8. ↑ A Brighter Summer Day: Coming of Age in Taipei https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/3981-a-brighter-summer-day-coming-of-age-in-taipei

External links

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