Gotham Awards Revue: "Blue Sun Palace"
Monday, December 1, 2025 at 5:00PM by Nick Taylor
The variations of melancholy on display in Blue Sun Palace, ranging from everyday stressors to self-recriminating shame, to the profoundly dull ache of existing in the shadow of life-shattering upheavals, are an exquisite feat. Director Constance Tsang’s penchant for choreographing scenes in one shot allows her to parse the emotional gradations and inflections with a fine-toothed comb. Sometimes, she distills her character’s moods in a single static shot. At others, she has her camera pan back and forth across a conversation, as if it’s a silent but active participant. Her directorial choices always feel deliberate without being show-offy, even when teeing up another self-consciously beautiful image or logistically challenging camera movement...