It is a shame, personally I’d love to see a legitimate release of Yang’s Terrorizers.
It’s shameful. We have made lots of requests in order to see his movies in DVD, but nothing. The matter is that Yang is not commercial at all, also among the cinephiles. By the way, there’s a very good VHS copy in the internet, if you want.
It has nothing to do with Yang but the Taiwanese film companies who simply don’t see films like these as viable commercial products overseas. I mean hell, almost all the great Taiwanese films suffer similar fates to this a well. City of Sadness for example….
Criterion and other US companies can’t really do much if they can’t acquire the rights.
It has nothing to do with Yang but the Taiwanese film companies who simply don’t see films like these as viable commercial products overseas. I mean hell, almost all the great Taiwanese films suffer similar fates to this a well. City of Sadness for example….
Criterion and other US companies can’t really do much if they can’t acquire the rights.
Torrents. If you look just a bit on google I guarantee you can find A Brighter Summer Day to download. The video quality isn’t great (it’s like a 3rd generation rip of a laserdisc from the early 90s or something) and will annoy you at first, but once you get into the rhythm of the movie, I promise you’ll forget about the quality. It’s an magnificent film (probably one of my 4 or 5 favorites EVER).
We should be grateful for Yi YI on Criterion at least. No?
There seems to be plenty written about A Brighter Summer Day. There must have been a retrospective of his films traveling around the country in 2002 or so. With this sort of praise and with the popularity of the Criterion disc I have some hope that we will have more Yang at some point. And, I hate to say this, but the poor guy’s death in the summer of ’07 may help to bring his films some exposure. Absence makes the heart…
He died in Beverley Hills; I like to think that means he had some commercial success.
I hope TAGIMAUCIA is right.
I have a DVD-R made from the laserdisc that I bought got a few years ago from SuperHappyFun. I don’t think they’re around anymore, but there’s something similar, I think, on yesasia’s sight.
I know, we need to demand more Yang to be made available on DVD. An Eclipse with a selection of his movies would be nice.
From what I understand, the source of many of the prints of his films shown theatrically in the US was Yang himself. With his passing, I hope these prints continue to find themselves in favorable circumstances.
http://www.filmmakermagazine.com/blog/2009/05/scorseses-wcf-adds-b-side-auteurs-kent.php
Good news… Reading this it seems to me that ABSD is definitely going to be coming out on dvd sometime in the near future.
That is good news indeed, and on top of that theauteurs is finally getting some recognition. This is becoming a great day.
What’s all the hub-bub, bub?? You can watch it here. http://www.watch-movies-links.net/movies/a_brighter_summer_day/ Thank me later, you miscreants.
Just finished reading this by Michael Atkinson:
http://www.movingimagesource.us/articles/endless-summer-20090518
I got my dvd copy of it through ebay. Once in awhile you can find a copy through private sellers. It was worth whatever I paid for it -which from what I recall, wasn’t too much. A great film – one that needs repeat viewings, I think. It stars an unrecognizably young Chang Chen.
Especially since he past away recently, Film Forum should have a whole retrospective on him soon so that way criterion could put it out on dvd. He hasn’t even made that many films except “A Brighter Summer Day” which is about 4 hours long. Glad to hear that Scorsese is screening it.
Yes, a proper retrospective and definitive R1 releases of all of his films—particularly Taipei Story, The Terrorist, A Brighter Summer Day, A Confucian Confusion, and Mahjong—would be nice.
Would really like to get a hold A Brighter Summer Day dvd, I heard criterion was going to release it eventually. Although I can’t confirm this.
Yang’s A Brighter Summer Day is a truly extraordinary film that should be required in film studies—slow but hard to resist if you can trudge through a first complete viewing— I think you can still view it on youtube.com
It’s on google video, and (as already mentioned by the ex-troll Perfumed Dandy) here.
Hmm…seems to be the same source that I have.
There was a complete retrospective of Edward Yang’s work last year at Cinematheque Ontario, thanks to James Quant. I’m not sure but I think it must have traveled to some other cities as well. I was fortunate to see every film, based solely on my love for Yi Yi, and the amazing things I had heard about his other films, and I wasn’t disappointed.
If you’ve never seen A Brighter Summer Day, it’s pretty much mandatory viewing.
a complete retrospective of Edward Yang’s work
Sounds great.
http://cgi.ebay.com/A-Brighter-Summer-Day-Taiwan-DVD-RARE_W0QQitemZ320466692675QQcmdZViewItemQQptZUS_DVD_HD_DVD_Blu_ray?hash=item4a9d4daa43#ht_578wt_941
The film is being restored by Scorsese’s World Cinema Foundation. A in-progress print was shown at Cannes in 2009.
That’s great to hear. One of the masterworks of world cinema that deserves to get a proper release. I’m looking forward to that one and the other great WCF-project “Forest of the Hanged”.
At the screening of A Brighter Summer Day in Bologna, during last year edition of Cinema Ritrovato Festival, Pierre Rissient who introduced the film made a brief digression about the imminent edition of Edward Yang’s Dvds.
He said that not only criterion is planning the edition of A Brighter Summer day, but also Carlotta is planning to publish all his feature films (and as I cherish my Chantal Akerman boxset from Carlotta I started my personal countdown: looking forward especially watching Taipei Story again!!!
all this obviously, thinking that I may always trust someone like Pierre Rissient.
unfortunately “imminent” is a vague term, and it is more so thinking that this Pierre Rissient introduction took place in July 2009….
wow!!!! i’d love to re-watch Brighter Summer Day thanks to Scorsese, to think a masterpiec eof the 90’s hasn’t gotten a proper release yet is a travesty!!!!
hopefully Confucian Confusion too and his debut.
it would have been more…“reasonable” had it been from the 10’s but it’s 90’s dammit!!!
besides this and Forest of the Hanged, does anyone else know what else is the Foundation been working on?
That’s really great to hear. Not only about A Brighter Summer Day, but the rest of Yang’s films.
@ Dim: Last I heard, Scorsese’s WCF was also working on restoring Mário Peixoto’s Limite from 1931.
BIG YESSS to A Brighter Summer Day, maybe this is the only film I watched two times in a row, and that means 8 straight hours….and until today it’s still the most enormous difference between first and second viewing in my movie going experience…
Aaron O
Is there any way/where on earth to see A Brighter Summer Day? Does Yang not deserve auteur status? Why hasn’t this made it to a legit DVD? anyone?