A love letter to Blue Sun Palace (2025)

On Saturday April 5th, Blue Sun Palace had its New York premier at the MoMA. I don't know what to say. I don't know if I can find the verbiage to properly express what I experienced. I knew when purchasing my ticket that I would be seeing at the very least 5 years of Constance Tsang's labor of love, from the Cannes Film Festival all the way back to home, and the first thing I thought after watching the credits was "I need to see it again".

Connie was my very first screenwriting professor, one of two who gave me the most valuable resources and information when developing my script for my first official student film. However, my appreciation for her as an educator could not prepare me for my appreciation for her as an artist. Blue Sun Palace gave the world a personal, inward piece of Connie which left the audience emotional and astounded. Regardless of your relationship to the cast and crew, you enter as a neutral agent and leave the auditorium taking something substantial with you.

I, now more than ever, fondly remember discussing the concept of the American Dream with her for my personal project as I hold on to the exemplary product of this narrative of accounts from her loved ones. Art about the American Dream holds so much room specifically for immigrants and people of color to express their experiences with the paradox of life in the United States of America being better or having the ability to become better for everyone, everyone except us. Blue Sun Palace shows different laboring, traumatizing and heavy hearted events the Taiwanese-American main characters endure to maintain stability in their environment or achieve their character desire, prominent intertwining themes being grief, violence, fetishization and disconnect from long distance family.

My love for screenwriting developed in Connie's class. Since then, I've made it my focus to become better at understanding stories to become a better storyteller. Blue Sun Palace focuses a lot on relationships through the long takes and vignettes and operates in parallels between the lives and experiences of Amy and Didi. As someone who first heard of what Chekhov's gun was from the class, I noticed the entire final cut always came back to itself whether it be in relationships, shared character experiences and especially when keeping the plot moving. So many ideas were repeated, but each time a new outcome was presented. Character ideas and desires remained the same, but the narrative progression is rooted in the process of the actions they decide to take. So the only question I'm left with, which seems to be more philosophical than absolute, is when does Chekhov's gun stop being Chekhov's gun?

As of now, I feel I am unable to give Blue Sun Palace the proper review and analysis I would love to write a paper on. There is too much to be said about the spectacularity of Norm Li's cinematography and Wu Ke-Xi, Lee Kang-Sheng and Xu Haipeng's performances. However, it releases in theaters very soon and I will be making the time to give this film the attention it absolutely more than deserves.