A Brighter Summer Day (1991)

Young love and teen delinquency in Taiwan’s early 1960s adolescence, in Edward Yang’s slow-burn, bittersweet epic.

“I can still vividly recall skipping the last two classes of the day one afternoon in 11th Grade, going off to a nearby library and stumbling on a stream of this movie long before it had been restored. So I sat for four hours, watching a heavily compressed stream of an already low-resolution LaserDisc rip, and was totally mesmerised. The characters were Taiwanese yet I related so heavily to that search for identity and sense of alienation. In the years since, it’s only become more meaningful for me – it’s a profound study of a social ecosystem, our daily lives and its relation to a political situation, the hopes and dreams of youth we have despite it, and the mistakes we make when we believe the world is incomprehensible.” Neil Bahadur

“A film born out of both love for cinema and a deep desire to fully reform it. Yang understood mediality like few others; understood the underlying reasons for social violence and the aimlessness of youth like even fewer. His masterpiece traces a line from cinema past (Ozu Yasujirō) to cinema future (Tsai Mingliang, Lav Diaz).” Flavia Dima

1991 Taiwan
Directed by
Edward Yang
Produced by
Yu Weiyen
Written by
Edward Yang, Yan Hongya, Yang Shunqing, Lai Mingtang
Featuring
Chang Chen, Lisa Yang, Zhang Guozhu
Running time
237 minutes

Ranked in The Greatest Films of All Time poll

Sight and Sound

Who voted for A Brighter Summer Day

Critics

Jason Anderson
Canada
Fábio Andrade
Brazil
Mark Asch
USA
Neil Bahadur
Canada
James Bell
UK
John Berra
UK
Stefan Borsos
Germany
Ernest Chan Chi-wa
Hong Kong
Phoebe Chen
China/Australia
Kameron Collins
USA
Manishita Dass
UK/India
André Dias
Portugal
Flavia Dima
Romania
Ka Ming Fung
Hong Kong
Brian Hu
USA
Teresa Huang
Taiwan
Nick James
UK
Shanay Jhaveri
India
Christian Keathley
USA
Gabe Klinger
Brazil/USA
Jay Kuehner
USA
Zhang Ling
China
Beatrice Loayza
USA
Ruairí McCann
Ireland
Vikram Murthi
USA
Wang Muyan
China/France
Hidenori Okada
Japan
Bruno Oseguera Pizaña
Mexico
Jaime Pena
Spain
John Powers
USA
Kong Rithdee
Thailand
David Rooney
USA
Abby Sun
USA
Matt Turner
UK
Geoffrey Wong
Hong Kong

Directors

Gan Bi
China
Anthony Chen
Singapore
Allison Chhorn
Australia
Chuko Esiri
Nigeria
Stanley Kwan
Hong Kong
Kleber Mendonça Filho
Brazil
Saim Sadiq
Pakistan
Nobuhiro Yamashita
Japan
Midi Z
Taiwan
Shengze Zhu
China/USA