Among the most stunning restorations — and Blu-ray releases, in general — of the year is The Criterion Collection’s new edition of Edward Yang‘s 1991 Taiwanese masterpiece A Brighter Summer Day. Working from the Film Foundation’s World Cinema Project 2K restoration back in 2009, they used current technology to scan the original negatives in 4K, including the implementation of more than 50,000 different visual fixes, and the results are striking. Criterion have now released a video detailing the restoration work, with side-by-side comparisons, to show how much detail and clarity has been brought back.
Check it out below, along with an excerpt from Godfrey Cheshire‘s essay, and explore the making of the film here.
Though now decades old, Yang’s fourth feature retains an inexhaustible freshness that speaks to viewers the world over. Like a Taiwanese Rebel Without a Cause made with the gravity and epic sweep of The Godfather, the film, which has more than a hundred speaking parts, is above all a vision, in terms of both place and time. The place is Taipei, Yang’s home and the setting and subject of all seven of his features. As for time, we might consider two meanings. The years depicted are 1960–61, a particular juncture in modern Taiwanese history. But the time we witness is also that of adolescence, with all its inner turmoil, outer self-consciousness, and obsessive quest for identity.
A Brighter Summer Day is now available on The Criterion Collection.