A Brighter Summer Day
牯嶺街少年殺人事件
1991 · Taiwan · 237 min · 1.85:1 · Color
Directed by Edward Yang
Introduction
A Brighter Summer Day is a 1991 Taiwanese film directed by Edward Yang, with Chang Chen as Xiao Si'r, a secondary-school student, Lisa Yang as Ming, and Chang Kuo-chu as his father. It draws on a killing carried out by a teenager in Taipei in 1961. Xiao Si'r attends night classes and moves between two gangs while becoming involved with Ming; during the same period his father is taken in for political questioning and returns to reduced circumstances. The film carries a large cast and follows several threads at once: mainlander families, the school, the gangs, and the security apparatus. Much of it was shot at night with a torch or a single lamp as the only light source. It runs about two hundred and thirty-seven minutes, longer than the version originally released. It received the Golden Horse Award for Best Feature Film.
The Circuit Diagram
Most of the cast were non-professionals. Chang Chen was fourteen during the shoot, and his own father, Chang Kuo-chu, plays his father in the film. The English title comes from a line in Elvis Presley's Are You Lonesome Tonight, which the boys in the film mishear as a brighter summer day.
The full version was unavailable for many years after release. It was restored by the World Cinema Foundation in 2009 and has since been reissued in cinemas and on disc.
Titles
- Mainland China
- 牯岭街少年杀人事件
- Hong Kong
- 牯嶺街少年殺人事件
- Taiwan
- 牯嶺街少年殺人事件
- English
- A Brighter Summer Day
- Original
- 牯嶺街少年殺人事件
Cast
- Chang Chenas Xiao Si'r
- Lisa Yangas Ming
- Chang Kuo-chuas The Father