A Brighter Summer Day (1991)

Criterion Collection, The | Release Date: November 21, 2011

8.3	USER SCORE Universal acclaim based on 23 Ratings

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lasttimeisawJun 15, 2014

A 228 minutes saga from the late Taiwanese director Edward Yang (Yi Yi 2000, 10/10; A CONFUCIAN’S CONFUSION 1994, 8/10), A BRIGHTER SUMMER DAY, whose literal translation of its original Chinese title is “The Murder Incident of the Boy onA 228 minutes saga from the late Taiwanese director Edward Yang (Yi Yi 2000, 10/10; A CONFUCIAN’S CONFUSION 1994, 8/10), A BRIGHTER SUMMER DAY, whose literal translation of its original Chinese title is “The Murder Incident of the Boy on Guling Street”, is based on a true event in the 1960s, a 14-year-old boy murdered his 13-year-old girlfriend, and became the first juvenile offender served in jail since millions of mainland Chinese retreated to Taiwan in 1949 after the civil war.

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JLuis_001May 18, 2022

An epic that does full justice to something that can truly be called a masterpiece of cinema. The length may certainly be daunting for a certain part of the audience, but those 4 hours, despite the slow pace, never feel difficult or tedious.An epic that does full justice to something that can truly be called a masterpiece of cinema. The length may certainly be daunting for a certain part of the audience, but those 4 hours, despite the slow pace, never feel difficult or tedious.
It's a great example of how to allow a narrative to flourish properly without feeling like there's filler in the story. Could things be edited from the plot? Of course, and the film would still work, but you would completely undermine what you need to let flow smoothly. What I liked most about this film is that it addresses something as common as the identity crisis experienced during adolescence, but here it mixes it with the feeling of not belonging to the only land they have ever known because most of the kids in this film are the sons of parents who left mainland China after the victory of the communists, so now they are in a place with which they do not share customs and the uncertainty of their future creates an atmosphere more than conflictive for them. And what's left? The search for belonging. In this case it translates into gangs that offer him an uncomfortable solidarity and a sense of loyalty that he can find in any other way. And it all unfolds in a criminal intrigue complex enough to justify its length, but also like I said, never complicated enough to overwhelm the audience.
It's the main impulse for a story that begs you to be absorbed in all its pieces and that answers you with an exceptional quality. A magnum opus… Expand

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ahmedaiman1999Apr 16, 2020

It plays out at first like City of God; part coming-of-age film and part gang-warfare epic. Gradually, the story unravels like a rich tapestry, interweaving a plethora of plotlines to finally reveal a sketch of tragedy in which its hero isIt plays out at first like City of God; part coming-of-age film and part gang-warfare epic. Gradually, the story unravels like a rich tapestry, interweaving a plethora of plotlines to finally reveal a sketch of tragedy in which its hero is doomed by fate to fail in a hopeless quest for identity; doomed by a tragic flaw he is always oblivious of till the very end. A benign flaw that everyone else possess, but only magnified and became fatal to the hero because of his nobility which in this world considered anomaly. A world in which everyone perpetually suffering for senselessly and selfishly parasitizing on each other in order to cope.

(8/10)… Expand

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