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Old 8th October 2021, 03:14 PM
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MacBlayne MacBlayne is offline
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A Brighter Summer Day


In 1960 in Taiwan, a young teenage girl was murdered by a boy of the same age. Although it caused a fervour in the Taiwanese press at the time, very little information about the crime exists. It did leave it's mark on a young Edward Yang, who used the incident to build his 1991 four hour epic drama. A Brighter Summer Day is not a true crime expose. It's not a coming of age story, nor a nostalgia piece despite its late 50s/early 60s dressing. What A Brighter Summer Day is, is far more complex.

The plot begins in 1959. Xiao Si'r, the nickname of one Chang Chen (played, appropriately enough, by an outstanding Chang Chen) has misbehaved at school. His father is begging for leniency, but the school insists on punishing Xiao Si'r by making him attend night school lessons. It's convenient for the school to punish students like this, as the Taiwanese education system has reached breaking point with the influx of displaced Chinese from the Chinese Communist Revolution.

And thus begins an incredible vision of New Taiwanese Cinema. A Brighter Summer Day is an extraordinary exploration of manliness, displacement, and national identity. S'ir's odyssey from teenage gang member to murderer beautifully captures the enigma of what is Taiwan.

It's an interesting conundrum. Chinese and Taiwanese neighbours frequently quarrel in shops or in the street. S'ir's gang is made of the children on Chinese exiles, and they are at war with a gang that the children of Taiwanese natives. Their conflict is one expanded from their parents, and one that they don't fully understand beyond feeling like part of something greater. Which is all the more fascinating as they are in the same boat - a lack of national identity and security.

Although they speak of one day reclaiming China, the exiled Chinese have no culture of their own to claim. They live in houses built by the Japanese during World War II. The cinema and music they indulge in is American (the title of the film is taken from Elvis Presley's Are You Lonesome Tonight). The Taiwanese natives are one with no identity of their own too, listening to Japanese ballads left over from the war, and feeling pushed aside in their home country, in favour of the new Taiwanese - whatever that means.

The new Taiwan as seen by the Chinese Nationalists may be difficult to define, but is easy to note what fuelled it. Paranoia and anger flows through this new Taiwan. In one of the more chilling sequences, S'ir's father is asked to attend a meeting with the Secret Police. There is no violence, or threats, or screams. Uncertainty is the torture device employed, and the results are heartbreaking.

The paranoia is mirrored in S'ir's night school life. He barely sees his family, and teachers are rarely seen, but school monitors are everywhere. Uncertainty and rage defines S'ir's life. His friend aspires to be a singer, but S'ir has no ambitions. With all of the gang infighting, and charged-up hormones, S'ir isn't sure who his friends are.

His only ray of light is Ming, a girl struggling with her own feelings of displacement. In one of the more incredible scenes of this magnificent film, she is dressed up like an old Chinese princess, one that is desired by everybody, for a film audition. It encapsulates her feelings succinctly, as the feelings of desire are fake (instead of warmth and compassion, the director and crew speak of what else they can to make her more attractive), and she is asked to represent a Chinese cultural icon she is unfamiliar with.

These similarities bring S'ir and Ming together, but they are not bound for each other. Ming is promiscuous, clinging to any boy to feel wanted. S'ir is powered by self-loathing and toxic masculinity, fuelled by his delinquency, and anger at his broken father. S'ir's extremely misguided understanding of manliness brings the film to's tragic conclusion. It would be wrong to call S'ir a tragic victim failed by romance. Throughout the film, he is exposed to violence and it's consequences. He is under no illusion as to what he is about to do.

But the film doesn't label him as the perpetrator either. Rather, the film shows all of Taiwan as victim and perpetrator. A new nation that tore itself over its own lack of certainty. It may be an angry film, but Edward Yang does reveal sympathy for Taiwan. The final scene says it all, we know not what the future brings, but we act in the hopes of A Brighter Summer Day.
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