A Brighter Summer Day (1991) (Blu-ray) (New 4K Digital Restoration)
(English Subtitled) (Taiwan Version)

Product Description

From visionary Taiwanese director Edward Yang comes A Brighter Summer Day, an epic four-hour film set in 1960s Taiwan. Using a cast of teenage actors, including Chang Chen, Chang Han & Lawrence Ko, & natural locations, Yang brings what looks like a tale of rival street gangs to the screen. But his focus is really one young man, who faces his own individual struggles as the people of Taiwan come to grips with their personal identity. The boys generation is the first born to Taiwan after the massive immigration of Nationalist Chinese from the Mainland following the rise of Communism. These new Taiwanese struggle to define their own identity, & find inspiration in sources from Chinese swordplay novels, to Russian literature, to Japanese weaponry, to American pop culture & music.

The world of A Brighter Summer Day is opposed to its hopeful title, & reflects one of uncertainty, where the future has never seemed quite so cloudy or unpredictable. Yang draws upon the trials of his own childhood
- the daily dangers of gang violence, his own rural background, & the true-life murder of a thirteen year-old girl by a fourteen year-old boy
- to weave a complex tapestry of the anxieties & fears facing a nation uprooted by change & exile. A stunning, mesmerizing film which exemplifies the notion of film as art, A Brighter Summer Day is one of the definitive films of modern Taiwanese cinema.