Blu-ray, DVD Release: A Brighter Summer Day

By
Laurence
– December 30, 2015Find Others: Blu-ray, DVD, Movie, New Release, NewsGet More: , , , ,

Blu-ray & DVD Release Date: March 22, 2015
Price: DVD $29.95, Blu-ray $39.95
Studio: Criterion

a-brighter-summer-day1_optThe 1991 crime drama-romance A Brighter Summer Day, directed by Edward Yang (Yi Yi), is considered to be one of the great modern masterpieces of Taiwanese cinema.

Set in the early Sixties in Taiwan, A Brighter Summer Day is based on the true story of a crime that rocked the nation. A film of both sprawling scope and tender intimacy, this novelistic, patiently observed epic centers on the gradual, inexorable fall of a young teenager (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon’s Chen Chang, in his first role) from innocence to juvenile delinquency.

Set against a simmering backdrop of restless youth, rock and roll, and political turmoil, it’s a key entry in the New Taiwan Cinema movement.

A Brighter Summer Day Criterion Blu-ray boxPresented in Mandarin and Taiwanese with English subtitles, Criterion’s Blu-ray and DVD editions of the film include the following:

  • New 4K digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray
    • New audio commentary featuring critic Tony Rayns
    • New interview with actor Chen Chang
    • Our Time, Our Story,a 117-minute documentary from 2002 about the New Taiwan Cinema movement, featuring interviews with Yang and filmmakers Hou Hsiao-hsien and Tsai Ming-liang, among others
    • Videotaped performance of director Edward Yang’s 1992 play Likely Consequence
    • New English subtitle translation
    • An essay by critic Godfrey Cheshire and a 1991 director’s statement by Yang
Buy or Rent A Brighter Summer Day
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About Laurence

Founder and editor Laurence Lerman saw Alfred Hitchcock’s North by Northwest when he was 13 years old and that’s all it took. He has been writing about film and video for more than a quarter of a century for magazines, anthologies, websites and most recently, Video Business magazine, where he served as the Reviews Editor for 15 years.