A Sun

A Sun
Theatrical release poster
Traditional	陽光普照
Simplified	阳光普照
Mandarin	Yángguāng pǔzhào
Literally	Sunshine illuminates everything
Directed by	Chung Mong-hong
Written by	Chung Mong-hong Chang Yao-sheng
Produced by	Yeh Ju-feng Tseng Shao-chien
Starring	Chen Yi-wen Samantha Ko Wu Chien-ho Liu Kuan-ting
Cinematography	Nagao Nakashima
Edited by	Lai Hsiu-hsiung
Music by	Lin Sheng-xiang
Production company	3 NG Film
Distributed by	Applause Entertainment
Release dates	September 6, 2019 (2019-09-06) (TIFF) November 1, 2019 (2019-11-01) (Taiwan)[1]
Running time	155 minutes
Country	Republic of China (Taiwan)
Languages	Taiwanese Mandarin Taiwanese Hokkien
Budget	NT$44 million[2]
Box office	NT$14 million[3]

A Sun (Chinese: 陽光普照) is a 2019 Taiwanese drama film directed and co-written by Chung Mong-hong. The film stars Chen Yi-wen, Samantha Ko, Wu Chien-ho, Liu Kuan-ting as the ensemble. The story centers upon Chen Jian Ho (Wu), an arrested troubled teenager, as well as Hao (Greg Hsu), Ho's well-educated brother who commits suicide due to familial pressure on his education and brother. It then progresses to the aftermath of these events, depicting Ho's re-entry into society, as well as his father Wen's (Chen) efforts to acknowledging his son, something he has never done.

The film premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival on September 6, 2019, before being released on Netflix as a Netflix Original Film. It received various accolades, including 11 nominations at the 56th Golden Horse Awards, winning Best Feature Film and Best Director for Chung.^[4] It was also selected as the Taiwanese entry for the Best International Feature Film at the 93rd Academy Awards,^[5] making the shortlist of fifteen films.^[6] The film received generally positive reviews from critics.

Plot[]

Troubled teenager Chen Jian Ho is arrested after he and his friend Radish assaulted a young man named Oden at a restaurant; unexpectedly, Radish chopped off Oden's hand with a machete. Ho is sentenced to juvenile detention, while Radish is given a harsher sentence. Ho's father, Wen, disowns Ho's existence after this, though his wife Qin continues to visit their son in custody. Wen instead focuses on Ho’s shy older brother Hao, who is studying at a cram school for medical school. Wen is continually pestered at his driving instructor job by Oden's father for money, but Wen refuses to pay, claiming no responsibility for his son’s actions.

A girl named Yu and her aunt meet Qin, as she has become pregnant with Ho's child. Although Qin supports Yu throughout her pregnancy, she never informs Ho about this. In a visit, Hao tells his brother about the pregnancy, and Ho rages on the truth being hidden from him for so long. At midnight, Wen is awoken to the news of Hao committing suicide by jumping from the apartment balcony. Zhen, a classmate and romantic interest of Hao's, informs Qin that Hao had sent her a text the day prior, explaining that he felt he had nowhere to hide from all the attention on him. Ho and Yu marry, and when Ho is released after a year and a half in detention, he moves back home, where his father continues to ignore him. Ho takes a job at a car wash to support his family. One night, Wen, tormented by visions of his deceased son, goes out to buy cigarettes. He encounters Ho at the convenience store, unaware that he had taken a night shift there; they speak briefly about Hao and appear to reconcile.

Three years later, Ho is approached by the recently-released Radish who asks him for money, but he rejects. Radish later picks him up after a shift to drive downtown, where he instructs Ho to enter an alleyway and fire a gun at a legislator's office; Ho reluctantly does so. Wen becomes concerned with Radish’s presence in town and confronts him, offering to pay him to stay away from his son; Radish dismisses him. Radish again visits Ho late at night at the car wash, coercing him into borrowing a client's car and going for a late-night drive. They stop amid a forested highway, where Radish instructs Ho to get out and approach a group of men inside to deliver a package; he is paid a large sum of money. However when Ho returns in the pouring rain, Radish is missing, and he flees.

Some time later, a group of thugs kidnap Ho and demand the money, explaining that Radish was found dead in a ditch near the park. After Ho gives them the money, they beat him and drop him off on a busy overpass, leaving him with a substantial "delivery fee" for his trouble. Meanwhile, Wen and Qin go for a hike, where Wen explains that he has been skipping work to tail Ho and Radish. He witnessed them borrow the car and drive to the park; once Ho left to get the money, Wen ran down Radish with his car, drags him to the forest, and kills him with a rock before driving away. He explains that this was the best way he could think of to help his only remaining son.

Some time later, Ho and his mother bond over a stack of old notebooks that Wen had gifted to Hao at medical school, each titled with Wen's motto "Seize the Day, Decide Your Path"; all of them are empty. They then share a tandem bike ride through a park; the ambivalent Qin gazes at the surrounding sceneries.

Cast[]

• Chen Yi-wen as Wen (阿文)
• Samantha Ko as Qin (琴姐)
• Wu Chien-ho as A-Ho (or "Ho") (陳建和)
• Greg Hsu as A-Hao (or "Hao") (陳建豪)
• Liu Kuan-ting as Radish (菜頭)
• Apple Wu as Xiao-Yu (or "Yu") (王明玉)
• Wen Chen-ling as Xiao-Zhen (or "Zhen") (郭曉貞)
• Ivy Yin as Miss Yin (尹姐)

Production[]

According to director Chung Mong-hong, the idea from A Sun arose when he met his troubled high school friend whom he has not met in 40 years, at a café in Southern Taiwan. His friend told him about how he and his friend had cut off someone's hand in his youth, which for some time affected him psychologically. Later while having dinner with his friends and family, a robust mental image of a hand boiling in a hot pot struck him and drove him to create the film. After writing the opening sequence, Chung began to think about suicide, which is common in Taiwan, as well as the familial and social effects that suicides and juvenile imprisonment usually cause. The family members were given a very traditional upbringing to drive the story further.^[7]

Chung wanted another person to write the screenplay, but finding a screenwriter he deems good enough proves to be difficult: "Good screenwriters are like physicians. Even when you know you are sick, good physicians are still rare. When you can't find one, you may try various therapies yourself." He deemed Chang Yao-sheng perfect for this project, described as collaborative and analytical, and his screenplay "literary". Chung said he was "grateful" to have Chang involved in the film, opining that he is more creative when writing stories. The collaborative nature of the making of A Sun is new to Chung, who had worked the most for his previous films; he described those films as worse, and that A Sun is more stylistically diverse. As co-writer of the screenplay, Chung struggled to create character developments, as he wanted everyone in the story to have some kind of involvement in driving the story, arguing that that is what gives the characters "life."^[8]

For casting the film's ensemble, Chung wanted the adult characters to be around his age, with the family consisting of four people. Chen Yi-wen was the first to be selected, specifically portraying Wen. Having collaborated together in Godspeed (2016), Chung believed that Chen could portray Wen, which he described as unsuccessful and "a useless father." Greg Hsu met Chung twice before Chung could believe that Hsu was the right actor for Hao, noting his awkwardness.^[7]

The soundtrack was composed by Lin Sheng-xiang (林生祥), who also composed the soundtrack for The Great Buddha+. 花心 ("Flowery heart"), a song by Wakin Chau, is sung by A-Ho's fellow inmates before he leaves detention.

Themes[]

Chung stated his intention of A Sun as to explore said familial and social effects caused by juvenile imprisonment and suicide. The film, he said, is not of joy, but rather of reflection upon family, society, and the hardships within life. The Sun symbolizes hope, stating that the goal of the film was to give audiences an understanding of life, "because that understanding is a precious thing."^[7] Brian Hioe of No Man is an Island noted that this theme is common within Taiwanese cinema following the 2014 Taipei Metro attack, which has similarities to A Sun.^[9]

One of the film's themes is darkness. Chung opines that darkness is the safest place to be in, as it provides energy and comfort, though noted that too much time in the darkness may incite rage. He provided the example of a fetus being in the darkness of a mother's womb, before being greeted with light during birth. In the final scene, Qin gazes at the sunny sceneries with a slightly joyful face, though is still tormented by the effects of what happened to her two sons, projecting the moral that not everything visible is real. Chung also noted that the characters in the film are not entirely antagonistic: there is a certain amount of good in Radish, and his background justifies his actions, though audiences might consider him evil due to what is mainly seen from him.^[8]

According to Ang Lee, A Sun's spiritual quality is reminiscent of the Buddhist teachings, especially regarding karma. He argued that in the film, there is a distinct sense of destiny felt within the characters; every decision they commit drives the story forward, as if their paths of life have been determined from the beginning of the film. This is a common narrative style in Asian cinema. Though nonreligious, Chung said that the spirituality of the film is up to the audience interpretations; he himself is unsure of what force drives the film forward.^[8]

Socioeconomic inequality in Taiwan is also covered in A Sun. Wen's motto of "Seize the Day, Decide Your Path" does not reflect his life, and after being released from prison, Ho works in a car wash, while Radish resorts to gang crimes amid the backdrop of poverty. However, Hioe says that the film's coverage on this subject is light, in lieu of The Great Buddha+ (2017) as well as The Bold, the Corrupt, and the Beautiful (2017).^[9]

Release[]

A Sun premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival on September 6, 2019,^[10] and was screened at the Tokyo International Film Festival shortly afterward.^[11]

Critical response[]

On the review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, A Sun holds an approval rating of 94% based on 18 reviews.^[12] The film was positively reviewed by Peter Debruge in Variety,^[13] as well as Deborah Young in The Hollywood Reporter,^[14] David Ehrlich of IndieWire^[15] and Anthony Kao in Cinema Escapist.^[16] The reviewers praised Chung's restraint as well as the writing and acting of the ensemble of characters.

The film received significant attention from American critics after Peter Debruge of Variety named it the best film of 2020.^[17] Prior to this, few American critics were even aware of the film's existence or its Netflix release earlier that year.^[18]

Awards and nominations[]

See also[]

• List of submissions to the 93rd Academy Awards for Best International Feature Film
• List of Taiwanese submissions for the Academy Award for Best International Feature Film

References[]

External links[]

• A Sun at IMDb 
• A Sun at AllMovie