Evokes an era so transitional and important to the millions of mainland Chinese who fled to Taiwan after the war, and it was certainly nice to see the representation in what was a thoughtful film from Edward Yang. However, I never truly got invested in these characters or the plot, which is mostly about adolescent males vying for dominance with one another, between gangs and within a gang, leading to tragic events. The way it's told is quite ponderous yet often manages to be confusing, and it's strange that a brutal act of revenge doesn't seem to result in anything. There were some interesting moments related to the detention and questioning of the father for political reasons, but they also don't seem to come to much either. The film is far, far too long at four hours, and in all its dreariness it became a chore to finish for me. I have to be true to that in giving it a score, regardless of the acclaim and how much I wanted to like it.
Review of A Brighter Summer Day
