The late Taiwanese’s masterwork is an epic tale charting the descent of a head-strong teenage boy from his seemingly orderly, middle-class life to juvenile delinquency. Set in Taipei in 1959, a decade after Mao’s communist party conquered Mainland China to render the independent Taiwan a hotbed for the raging cold war between the Chinese and the Americans, A Brighter Summer Day is an incessive study of displacement and loss of identity; a scorching coming-of-age story set against colossal political events; and an affectionate reverie of Yang’s teenhood – all laced with the director’s signature empathy. At 237 minutes, A Brighter Summer Day is by turns intimate and grand; violent and gentle; nostalgic and sober-minded; and a testament to the genius of one of cinema’s greatest luminaries.

Restored in 2009 by The Film Foundation’s World Cinema Project at Cineteca di Bologna/L’Immagine Ritrovata in association with Central Motion Picture Corporation and the Edward Yang Estate. Restoration funding provided by Armani, Cartier, Qatar Airways, Qatar Museum Authority. Scan performed at Digimax laboratories in Taipei.