This week we’re excited to present a conversation from this year’s edition of New Directors/New Films with Blue Sun Palace director Constance Tsang and cast members Ke-Xi Wu and Murielle Hsieh. This conversation was moderated by New Directors/New Films co-chair Dan Sullivan.

Blue Sun Palace is now in select theaters, courtesy of Dekanalog.

For more than 30 years the Taiwanese actor Lee Kang-sheng has forged an indelible, inimitable creative partnership with Tsai Ming-liang. Lee makes as big an impression in Constance Tsang’s Blue Sun Palace, which relocates him to working-class Queens. When wayward Taiwanese immigrant Cheung (Lee) finds his life of part-time work and light extramarital affairs shattered by violence, he connects with workers at a small Queens salon, victims themselves to the indignities forced upon strangers in a strange land. But Blue Sun Palace is no misery showcase. Intimacy and warmth co-exist with economic anxieties and deep grief that are articulated with uncommon intelligence and understanding of how adults endure any given day. In this debut feature, awarded the French Touch Prize by the jury at the 2024 Cannes Critics’ Week, Tsang shapes an immigrant’s tale, a relationship drama, a workplace comedy, and a great New York story in one.