A Brighter Summer Day

Yang’s artistry evokes the sensation that you aren’t just observing these events unfold, but that you’re watching them through his eyes – as if the filmmaker was a ghost observing these characters.

Here, Yang has erected a temporal experience, a completely immersive world that few artists in any medium could ever hope to do. If you love cinema, you'll love this movie. That's a promise.

A Brighter Summer Day's extended running time pays off: Si'r's spiral towards tragedy never stretches credibility, because Yang takes the time to let it realistically occur, showing us each factor that contributes to his slow transformation.

Yang's graceful, naturalistic way of inserting politically fraught signifiers into his characters' hands could teach other film-makers a thing or two.

You won't relish the thought of spending four hours with Si'r, but A Brighter Summer Day will leave you wanting even more.

Yang's methods bring a melancholy tenderness to his recollections. He films intricately staged action in long takes of a rueful, contemplative reserve.

Its melodrama likewise comes wrapped in a firm directorial control that eschews outward flamboyance, yet holds the viewer in its empathetic grip.

Yang does for Taipei what James Joyce does for Dublin, Ireland, and William Carlos Williams does for Paterson, New Jersey.

...gives early teen life, in all its complexity, a burnished reverence.

“A Brighter Summer Day” swept me away into a world of juvenile delinquency and rock and roll. Politically charged and boasting with energy, Yang’s novelistic vision is something to behold.