# A Sun (阳光普照)
**A Sun** (陽光普照) is a 2019 Taiwanese family drama directed by Chung Mong-hong (鍾孟宏), his fifth feature film, which follows a Taipei family through the imprisonment of its younger son and a subsequent bereavement[1](https://www.netflix.com/hk/title/81168282) • [2](https://www.twreporter.org/a/director-mong-hong-chung-a-sun). The film won six Golden Horse Awards at the 56th edition, including Best Feature Film and Best Director, and appeared on the shortlist for the [Academy Award for Best International Feature Film](https://www.edgepedia.org/academy-award-for-best-international-feature-film)[3](https://www.mandarinvision.com/%E9%99%BD%E5%85%89%E6%99%AE%E7%85%A7). It runs 155 minutes and traces the family's experience from 2013 to 2018[4](https://www.cfa.org.cn/cfa/yj/lwby72/2023082816393619799/index.html).
| Key fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| Director and position | Chung Mong-hong's fifth feature; he wrote, directed, and shot it[2](https://www.twreporter.org/a/director-mong-hong-chung-a-sun) |
| Release | Taiwan, 2019; 155 minutes; story spans 2013 to 2018[1](https://www.netflix.com/hk/title/81168282) • [4](https://www.cfa.org.cn/cfa/yj/lwby72/2023082816393619799/index.html) |
| Principal cast | Chen Yi-wen (father A-wen), Ko Shu-chin (mother Qin-jie), Wu Chien-ho (younger son A-ho), Greg Han Hsu (older son A-hao), Liu Kuan-ting (Tsai-tou)[1](https://www.netflix.com/hk/title/81168282) • [3](https://www.mandarinvision.com/%E9%99%BD%E5%85%89%E6%99%AE%E7%85%A7) |
| Golden Horse Awards (56th) | 6 wins from 11 nominations: Best Feature Film, Best Director, Best Actor (Chen Yi-wen), Best Supporting Actor (Liu Kuan-ting), Best Editing, Audience Choice[3](https://www.mandarinvision.com/%E9%99%BD%E5%85%89%E6%99%AE%E7%85%A7) |
| Other recognition | Oscar Best International Feature shortlist; Ko Shu-chin won Best Supporting Actress at the 14th Asian Film Awards[3](https://www.mandarinvision.com/%E9%99%BD%E5%85%89%E6%99%AE%E7%85%A7) |
| Festivals | Toronto (Contemporary World Cinema), Busan (Asian Cinema Window), Tokyo, Hong Kong Asian, Singapore, Palm Springs[3](https://www.mandarinvision.com/%E9%99%BD%E5%85%89%E6%99%AE%E7%85%A7) |
| Music | Score by Lin Sheng-hsiang[5](https://www.cna.com.tw/news/amov/201909040190.aspx) |
## Spoilers
### Plot
The film opens as a dark thriller. Two young men in plastic raincoats ride a stolen motor scooter through Taipei's neon-lit streets in a tropical downpour, and the older of them attacks a diner with a machete; the victim's severed right hand lands in a simmering hotpot of soup[6](https://www.bfi.org.uk/sight-and-sound/reviews/sun-chung-mong-hong-taiwan-oscar-nominee-netflix). The attackers are the rebellious younger son A-ho (巫建和) and his friend Tsai-tou (劉冠廷), and the assault sends A-ho to a juvenile reformatory[3](https://www.mandarinvision.com/%E9%99%BD%E5%85%89%E6%99%AE%E7%85%A7).
The family's troubles compound. A-ho's pregnant girlfriend Xiao-yu (吳岱凌) arrives at the house, and the mother, Qin-jie (柯淑勤), keeps her there over the father A-wen's (陳以文) objection[3](https://www.mandarinvision.com/%E9%99%BD%E5%85%89%E6%99%AE%E7%85%A7). The family of the man who was slashed seeks large compensation from A-wen[3](https://www.mandarinvision.com/%E9%99%BD%E5%85%89%E6%99%AE%E7%85%A7). A-wen, exhausted by his younger son, places all his hopes on the gifted older son A-hao (許光漢), who is repeating his final school year to reach his first-choice university, without knowing that the warm, kind A-hao carries a secret of his own[3](https://www.mandarinvision.com/%E9%99%BD%E5%85%89%E6%99%AE%E7%85%A7) • [2](https://www.twreporter.org/a/director-mong-hong-chung-a-sun). The family suffers a bereavement, and Qin-jie, its emotional pillar, is left worn out as everyone waits for the day they can walk out of the gloom into sunlight[3](https://www.mandarinvision.com/%E9%99%BD%E5%85%89%E6%99%AE%E7%85%A7).
After his release, A-ho works two jobs a day to provide for Xiao-yu and the child[7](https://xz.jsjc.gov.cn/wenhua/202101/t20210125_409574.shtml). Tsai-tou, also out of prison, resents A-wen's refusal to help after the stabbing, a stance that cost Tsai-tou his grandmother, and seeks revenge on A-ho[8](https://www.hcsh.tp.edu.tw/static/webroot/G157051137991928/application/NW163003522000215.pdf). The film's reconciliation between father and younger son begins at a late-night convenience store, and a dream in which A-wen sees his elder son again marks the emotional turning point[9](https://news.ebc.net.tw/news/living/187184).
## Title and imagery
A voiceover in the film defines the title: "The fairest thing in this world is the sun, uninterrupted for twenty-four hours, bright and warm, shining on everything." The film, however, examines the shadows that such all-covering light cannot reach[9](https://news.ebc.net.tw/news/living/187184). Critics note the contrast between the title and the content, which keeps its focus on the gloom in ordinary life[10](https://m.thepaper.cn/newsDetail_forward_6022940).
The film uses strong light mostly in contrast with darkness, and the imagery carries the plot's suggestions and explanations[7](https://xz.jsjc.gov.cn/wenhua/202101/t20210125_409574.shtml). A dark animated sequence accompanies A-hao's retelling of the story of [Sima Guang](https://www.edgepedia.org/sima-guang) breaking the vat, a classical Chinese tale recast in the film's bleak register[10](https://m.thepaper.cn/newsDetail_forward_6022940). Taiwanese critics have described Chung's style as "cold realism" (阴冷的现实主义): his narratives reach into the daily reality of ordinary people while carrying the black violence and humor of crime films and the sinister grotesquerie of thrillers[4](https://www.cfa.org.cn/cfa/yj/lwby72/2023082816393619799/index.html).
## Director and place in his work
Chung Mong-hong holds an MFA in filmmaking from the School of the [Art Institute of Chicago](https://www.edgepedia.org/art-institute-of-chicago) and has directed more than a hundred television commercials since 1997. His documentary *The Doctor* won the Taipei Film Award for Best Documentary, his first narrative feature *Parking* was selected for the Un Certain Regard section at Cannes, and *The Fourth Portrait* won him the Golden Horse Award for Best Director in 2010[2](https://www.twreporter.org/a/director-mong-hong-chung-a-sun). He grew up in Jiadong Township, Pingtung County, and as a high school student was drawn to Taiwan New Cinema and the films of the Japanese director Nagisa Oshima[11](https://www.cna.com.tw/news/firstnews/201911230245.aspx).
Family has run through his films: *The Fourth Portrait* and *Soul* both contain family elements, but *A Sun* is the first to place a family's emotions directly at the center of the story[5](https://www.cna.com.tw/news/amov/201909040190.aspx). Earlier films were driven by spatial movement, following passers-by and traveled roads; *A Sun* instead stays within one family's field[4](https://www.cfa.org.cn/cfa/yj/lwby72/2023082816393619799/index.html). The film continues his recurring concern with fathers and sons, cutting from individual trauma into the darkness and warmth inside a family and projecting the predicament of the modern family under emotional estrangement[12](https://www.kci.go.kr/kciportal/ci/sereArticleSearch/ciSereArtiView.kci?sereArticleSearchBean.artiId=ART002910120).
## Reception and awards
At the 56th Golden Horse Awards in November 2019, the film received 11 nominations and won 6 awards: Best Feature Film, Best Director, Best Actor for Chen Yi-wen, Best Supporting Actor for Liu Kuan-ting, Best Editing, and the Audience Choice Award[3](https://www.mandarinvision.com/%E9%99%BD%E5%85%89%E6%99%AE%E7%85%A7) • [11](https://www.cna.com.tw/news/firstnews/201911230245.aspx). Nominations included Best Actress for Ko Shu-chin, Best Actor for Wu Chien-ho, Best Supporting Actress for Wen Chen-ling, Best Cinematography, Best Original Screenplay, and Best Original Film Song[3](https://www.mandarinvision.com/%E9%99%BD%E5%85%89%E6%99%AE%E7%85%A7). The win was Chung's second Golden Horse directing award, nine years after *The Fourth Portrait*[11](https://www.cna.com.tw/news/firstnews/201911230245.aspx).
Ko Shu-chin won Best Supporting Actress at the 14th Asian Film Awards, where the film was also nominated for Best Film, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Supporting Actor, Best Editing, and Best Screenplay[3](https://www.mandarinvision.com/%E9%99%BD%E5%85%89%E6%99%AE%E7%85%A7). The Houston Film Critics Society named it Best Foreign Language Film of 2020, and it was shortlisted for the Satellite Award for Best International Film[3](https://www.mandarinvision.com/%E9%99%BD%E5%85%89%E6%99%AE%E7%85%A7). The film was released internationally on Netflix[1](https://www.netflix.com/hk/title/81168282).
## Critical interpretation
Academic commentary has read the film through psychoanalysis. A 2022 study in the journal *Taiwan Studies* published by the Taiwan Studies Center at [Hankuk University of Foreign Studies](https://www.edgepedia.org/hankuk-university-of-foreign-studies) applies [Jacques Lacan](https://www.edgepedia.org/jacques-lacan)'s theory of the three orders to the identity construction and psychological transformation of the father and son, arguing that the film's audiovisual language shapes its group portrait of characters and points toward social reality, expressing contemporary issues of family ethics and subject identity under emotional alienation[12](https://www.kci.go.kr/kciportal/ci/sereArticleSearch/ciSereArtiView.kci?sereArticleSearchBean.artiId=ART002910120). Chinese-language criticism has emphasized the film's antinomic visual metaphors of light and shadow in treating the father-son relationship, and the way A-ho, who owes the most to others, is driven by debt to Tsai-tou toward another crime[7](https://xz.jsjc.gov.cn/wenhua/202101/t20210125_409574.shtml).
## References
1. [陽光普照, Netflix](https://www.netflix.com/hk/title/81168282)
2. [《陽光普照》，為生命取暖──鍾孟宏專訪, 報導者 The Reporter (2019)](https://www.twreporter.org/a/director-mong-hong-chung-a-sun)
3. [陽光普照, Mandarin Vision](https://www.mandarinvision.com/%E9%99%BD%E5%85%89%E6%99%AE%E7%85%A7)
4. [《阳光普照》：关于父亲的隐喻, 中国电影资料馆](https://www.cfa.org.cn/cfa/yj/lwby72/2023082816393619799/index.html)
5. [國片陽光普照入選釜山影展 林生祥操刀配樂, 中央社 CNA (2019)](https://www.cna.com.tw/news/amov/201909040190.aspx)
6. [A Sun review: a Taipei family's thunder and loss, Sight and Sound, BFI (2021)](https://www.bfi.org.uk/sight-and-sound/reviews/sun-chung-mong-hong-taiwan-oscar-nominee-netflix)
7. [在阳光普照的世界里向阳而生, 徐州市人民检察院 (2021)](https://xz.jsjc.gov.cn/wenhua/202101/t20210125_409574.shtml)
8. [電影《陽光普照》影評, 臺北市立建國高級中學學生刊物](https://www.hcsh.tp.edu.tw/static/webroot/G157051137991928/application/NW163003522000215.pdf)
9. [《陽光普照》—陽光其外 陰影其中, EBC東森新聞](https://news.ebc.net.tw/news/living/187184)
10. [看不见的光线，看得见的阴影, 澎湃新闻 (2019)](https://m.thepaper.cn/newsDetail_forward_6022940)
11. [陽光普照 鍾孟宏隔9年再拿金馬導演, 中央社 CNA (2019)](https://www.cna.com.tw/news/firstnews/201911230245.aspx)
12. [張業明 (2022). 家庭困境與身份建構：拉康精神分析視域下電影《陽光普照》人物分析. 臺灣研究 no. 21, pp. 185-199.](https://www.kci.go.kr/kciportal/ci/sereArticleSearch/ciSereArtiView.kci?sereArticleSearchBean.artiId=ART002910120)
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*Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Films and standalone screen works › Individual films by title and year › Crime, thriller, and mystery films (individual works) › 2015–2019 films › Crime drama and neo-noir films*
*Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026*
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