A Brighter Summer Day (The Criterion Collection) [Blu-ray]

Among the most praised and sought-after titles in all contemporary film, this singular masterpiece of Taiwanese cinema, directed by Edward Yang (Yi Yi), finally comes to home video in the United States. 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, and is set against a simmering backdrop of restless youth, rock and roll, and political turmoil. A Brighter Summer Day (The Criterion Collection) [Blu-ray]

BLU-RAY SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES
– New 4K digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack
– 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
– PLUS: An essay by critic Godfrey Cheshire and a 1991 director s statement by Yang