Most American movie lovers likely know Edward Yang for Yi Yi, his bittersweet swansong from 2000 that chronicled the triumphs and travails of a modern Taiwanese family. Lyrical, heartfelt and dense, Yi Yi felt like the heralding of a new talent for American audiences, even though Yang had been making films since the ‘80s. Nestled in the middle of his oeuvre is A Brighter Summer Day (1991), a film that has been near impossible to see for years. Thanks to the Criterion Collection, Yang’s nearly four-hour behemoth is now readily available for home consumption and what an amazing beauty of a film it is.
Yang layers A Brighter Summer Day with elements of different genres. Part true crime story, part political screed, part family drama, part coming of age story, A Brighter Summer Day is impossible to define, but its parts work to create a uniquely exquisite project that can be both languid and violently exciting. Even its two titles are at odds. A Brighter Summer Day, the American title, is a wistful lyric cribbed from an Elvis Presley song that suggests a better time. Juxtapose that with the Taiwanese title which translates to “The Youth Killing Incident on Guling Street” and you can see how the movie exists on two separate planes. Using the portrayal of a notorious true crime incident from the early ‘60s as a framing device, Yang explores the emergence of Western cultural influence as an exciting and confusing vehicle for Taiwan’s adolescents, an already perplexing time for many people.
A first time viewer might find it difficult to parse and identify the film’s gigantic cast of characters. At its center is Si’r (Chang Chen), a 14-year-old boy going through a difficult period in his life. He is struggling at school and has been sent to “night school,” where the less prodigious students attend. He is the youngest son in a large family whose parents fled from the mainland to Taiwan in 1949 following the Communist takeover. Quiet and introspective, Si’r is mixed up in gang violence as the 217s, sons of mainlanders who fled Mao Zedong, battle with the Little Park crew, made up with the kids of locals. Si’r identifies with neither group, although he is sometimes pulled into the violence. It all changes when he begins a relationship with Ming (Lisa Yang), the girlfriend of the absent Little Park leader. It is a decision that pulls him inexorably towards tragedy.
It is important to understand the historical context leading up to the events in A Brighter Summer Day. Taiwan, initially ruled by the Japanese, was handed over to China at the end of the World War II. After being ousted by the Communists, Chiang Kai-shek and his nationalist supporters fled there and established a military dictatorship. Life there was fraught with tension, especially for those uprooted during the revolution and had to create new lives away from the mainland. Yang himself was born on the mainland in 1947 and was brought to Taiwan as a baby. At first, most of these transplants expected to return home following a Communist defeat, but this never happened.
This knowledge weighs heavily on Si’r and his friends, the first generation of teenagers who were born on the mainland but have come of age on Taiwan. Meanwhile, rock music and other influences from the West further confuse matters. Elvis Presley, especially, is an inspiration and Si’r’s friends sing covers of the King’s music at local nightclubs. Si’r isn’t the only one struggling. It seems everyone around him is one step from disaster. His older brother is an inveterate gambler who crosses a local gang. His parents are constantly borrowing and eking by on credit. One point, his father (Chang Kuo-chu) is taken away for questioning by the secret police in an interesting and unexpected subplot about his relationships with people on the mainland. Meanwhile Si’r’s friends are constantly fighting in escalating, bloody conflicts. It is no wonder the young man is about to snap.
Yang takes great pains to recreate the Taiwan of his youth. The night strolls in the languid, balmy air through the town’s quiet streets feel appropriately alive without traipsing into nostalgia. In one of the film’s opening sequences, Si’r and a friend hang out in the rafters of a movie studio, spying on a production. It’s easy to imagine Yang as a youngster doing the same, instilling in him a love for the cinema. There are also some heartfelt scenes of first love that only help to underscore the tragedy waiting at the end of this long, but worthwhile, film.
Sadly, Yang passed away in 2007 from cancer, leaving us with only a handful of films, many of which are out of print and difficult to find in the United States. A Brighter Summer Day may be a more difficult (and violent) work than Yi Yi, but it is equally important. Yet the same current defines both of these films: the yearning and longing that begins as an adolescent and still infects adults is difficult to understand.
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