A Brighter Summer Day

Arthouse movies are so underrated on imdb and I don't even know why. I guess this site is for popular movies only and top 250 is ridicilous. Letterboxd is much better site for movie lovers.

4 hours flew by and this is epic movie. It is pretty good but it ain't Raise the Red Lantern.

This movie is a Taiwan movie,I am a Chinese college student living in mainland.I think I should take response to write a review,because I see all the reviewers are not Chinese who cant know the background of this movie.there are something followed about Chines cultures and background.

Fist,in the movie period,china had two governments,one is communist party in mainland,the other is GuoMin party in Taiwan.Korean War made Communist part cant have enough power to invade Taiwan,but Guomin party still wanted to return to mainland by getting help from America.But as we all know,Guomin party just stays in Taiwan to now. And they were just in a fear of communist party military coming into Taiwan.At that special period,another fears were among all ordinary people in Taiwan. The president of Guomin party began to arrest communist spy in Guomin party.in fact,the secret arrest was a terrible horrible to people in Taiwan. This special period is called as 'white fear period',and so many innocent persons dead at that time.

So,you can see tanks were running in road，and dad were arrested for suspects communist spy.At all,the fears were among whole society.

what's more, in 1949 there were million people fleeing to Taiwan for following the Guomin Party. And many knowledge persons and military officers also in the process.this led government couldn'却 have enough money to pay and enough food to feed . many people lose their jobs.This is a hard time for many families. And it was not a peace time. it is a hungry time, Ming's family is a example.

Although,the director want to tell a lesson , don'却 try to change the bad world.but we can know he still have a soft and ideal heart but getting hurt too much.

Very good long movie (almost 4 hours) in every aspect: acting perfiormance cutting, quality of images and plot. In Taiwan the descenfants of those millions of Continental Chinese who fled away thereto after the Maoist takeover of their land don't feel well integrated in the Taiwanese society and form street gangs which fight one another and behave soemetimes violently. We follow this evolution in this movie in such realistyc and natural images and scenes that we Forget we are watching a movie and it looks like if we were watching real life scenes theough some window. The main plot tells the story of a young boy who is torn between opposite forces in society, at home and in love. A fascinating movie.

I just finished watching this four hour epic and something tells me that this is going to remain with me for a long, long time. I was glad I entered the cinema hall with no foreknowledge of what the film was about or anything about the story, except that it was directed by Edward Yang, whose Yi Yi I liked. Am I not glad I did that? The entire film, especially the second half, is an emotional powerhouse. Its funny, sociological and emotionally brutal.

The four hour run time was quite a deterrent however I planned it well and took one bathroom break but it was all worth it in the end. I would not recommend that you read anything of the story before you watch the film because several of the reviews above have spoilers in them. All I'll say is that it is about street gangs, but like nothing you've ever seen. It about lost childhood and children growing up so fast that its scary. The fact that all of this really happened makes it chilling.

I'm surprised that not many people have seen this film yet because it certainly deserves a classic status. The direction is probably one of the best I've ever experienced and I will definitely seek out other Edward Yang movies to watch.

The acting by all the teenage actors and children is nothing short of brilliant and I can see that some of the key actors never acted in another movie again which I believe is a waste.

I don't think its out on video as yet, however I would highly recommend that you seek it out. In my opinion the film demands total attention and is best watched on the big screen rather than on video.

Edward Yang's massive four hour epic "A Brighter Summer Day" is one of the true masterpieces of the 1990s and of the "New Taiwan cinema." It's ostensibly the story of a few rival street gangs in '60s Taiwan, but the film is about a single young man's rites of passage in an era in which his country was experiencing a major upheaval. The film is so meticulous in its construction and its feeling of community (its preparation, filming and post-production took several years) that at the same time its length automatically gives it an epic quality it is a remarkably intimate film that is about as far from an epic in the traditional (Hollywood) sense as possible. There are over a hundred speaking parts in the film and it is necessary to stay focused in order to keep track of what's going on and to whom, which is a good trick to make sure your audience is always paying attention. "A Brighter Summer Day" is a very personal vision that recalls both Yang's own childhood and an actual street murder that shook the nation.

The film itself slowly builds towards this singular act of violence that, when it finally arrives, is both shocking and inevitable. "A Brighter Summer Day" keeps with the trend among the finest films to emerge from Taiwan in that it is very pared down - the cast are all nonactors and there is no non-diagetic music. It is beautifully shot, moving from the interiors of houses, schools, and cheap dance clubs to the open fields of the countryside in summertime. Alternating between violence and serenity, the film is a rhythmic and poetic evocation of a particular era. Its ironic title (in that there is no "brighter summer day" for these characters) is taken from an Elvis song that one of the kids sings at a nightclub. It is a truly exemplary modern masterpiece that got no distribution in the West but deserves to be hunted out at all costs by those who love and cherish the film art.