Uploaded July 2026 | Updated September 2026, 3 weeks ago
Criterion mourns the loss of the late, great scholar and critic Tony Rayns, a longtime, highly respected contributor and collaborator who provided expert commentaries for a wide range of our disc releases, including for A BRIGHTER SUMMER DAY, the four-hour masterpiece by his friend Edward Yang.
In this excerpt from the classic commentary (an hour and 48 minutes in!), he charts Yang's journey from software engineer–and short-lived USC student–to one of the leading lights of the New Taiwan Cinema. Watch the full-length commentary–as well as Rayns’s tracks for Yang’s YI YI, Wong Kar Wai’s CHUNGKING EXPRESS, Sergei Parajanov’s THE COLOR OF POMEGRANATES, and many more–on the Criterion Channel: criterionchannel.com/browse
And enjoy this clip of Rayns and Yang in discussion, excerpted from their full-length commentary track on YI YI: youtu.be/oZPXth48-Ks
Criterion mourns the loss of the late, great scholar and critic Tony Rayns, a longtime, highly respected contributor and collaborator who provided expert commentaries for a wide range of our disc releases, including for A BRIGHTER SUMMER DAY, the four-hour masterpiece by his friend Edward Yang.
In this excerpt from the classic commentary (an hour and 48 minutes in!), he charts Yang's journey from software engineer–and short-lived USC student–to one of the leading lights of the New Taiwan Cinema. Watch the full-length commentary–as well as Rayns’s tracks for Yang’s YI YI, Wong Kar Wai’s CHUNGKING EXPRESS, Sergei Parajanov’s THE COLOR OF POMEGRANATES, and many more–on the Criterion Channel: criterionchannel.com/browse
And enjoy this clip of Rayns and Yang in discussion, excerpted from their full-length commentary track on YI YI: youtu.be/oZPXth48-Ks
