Hearing the melodious music made by Lin Sheng-xiang, no one thought that its opening would lead to a brutal, bloody event. Even the characters would not think that this was the turning point in their lives, both as individuals and as a family. The Taiwanese representative for the 2021 Academy Awards and who won six trophies at the 2019 Golden Horse Awards (including the best film) was indeed full of surprises, in his presentation of the ups and downs of life. Best Movie Site
The above brutal incident is when A-Ho (Wu Chien-ho) and his friend, Radish (Liu Kuan-ting), cut off a man’s hand in a restaurant. Despite blaming the majority of the blame on Radish, A-Ho still has to spend three years in juvenile prison. Outside, A-Ho’s mother, Qin (Samantha Ko), is loyal to strengthen her son. On the other hand, his father, A-wen (Chen Yi-wen), who works as an instructor at a driving course, is so angry that he refuses to acknowledge A-Ho as a child. A-wen chooses to pay attention to the eldest, A-Hao (Greg Hsu), who has always been known for his achievements.
The duration is 156 minutes. The coverage of the story is quite wide, with a span of approximately five years and the number of characters is not small. But thanks to the writing of Chung Mong-hong (also as director) and Chang Yao-sheng, the plot is very neat. The story jumps between each character run smoothly. The tempo is far from fast, but it is not stagnant and continues to flow for sure. Also the direction of Chung Mong-hong, which is accompanied by high sensitivity, will make you suck in every moment, especially when he puts the camera so close to the actor’s face to strengthen intimacy.
At first glance, A Sun appears as calm water when viewed from the surface. But who would have thought, inside there is a vortex that is always ready to pull us to the deepest trough. Over and over again the story throws a twist, the existence of which is not just stylistic, but emphasizes how we don’t fully know the character. How a person does not necessarily know all sides of his family. Movie Review
His character continued to have problems. Not a trivial matter, because some of them have to do with life and death. So A Sun is not a treat that exploits character misfortune. Nor is it a depressive spectacle that is only interested in making the story as dark as possible. A Sun did convey that no matter how hard we try to hide, the trials will continue to approach like the sun that ends up shining on all dark places. But just as the sun rises and sets, trouble (night) will change hope (day). A Sun never lost the light of hope.
That approach had an interesting impact on his music. The quantity of Lin Sheng-xiang’s compositions is not large, but one piece of music can convey a variety of impressions. At first glance, it all sounded melancholy. But on one occasion, melancholy is full of peace, while on other occasions it feels sad, even tragic.
The performance of the line-up is a complementary piece. Almost all characters keep secrets. Have duality. And the complexity of the psychic dynamics is able to be animated strongly and naturally by the casts. Special praise should be given to Chen Yi-wen (winning the Best Leading Actor category at the Golden Horse Awards). For most of the duration, A-wen was described as hard, stiff, and prone to selfishness. But once the veils on him began to unravel, I could feel the typical father figure of the actor’s acting. A father, who doesn’t care how hard it is, is actually always ready to help his son, even though it is done from behind the shadows. Top Movie