A Brighter Summer Day

A killing in Taipei in the early 1960s is what the film keeps circling, and it begins with Xiao Si'r (Chang Chen), a middle-class boy who drifts toward a street gang and meets Ming (Lisa Yang), his first love. His father (Chang Kuo-chu) and mother (Elaine Jin Yan-Ling) hold the household together while the boy slips further from it. Edward Yang builds the story from many small scenes, letting a large cast fill the frame until the city feels crowded with lives.