Yi Yi (2000) User Reviews

Not a "foreign" film; but a universal one

[somehope · 9/10 · 29 March 2009]

The family may (or may) not speak another language than you do, and they may or may not have a different color skin, but this family is the 21st family complete with the joy of a young child throwing water balloons off of buildings; a loving husband who loves his wife enough not to cheat on her with an old flame, yet wonders what might have been; a wife lost in depression and lack of purpose, a grandmother's death, a wedding, and a mall with a food court with lonely teenagers trying to connect, two of which do, and yet don't.

There is something in this film I can describe only with one word: humanism. No, I can't relate every actors name, but when I saw this film years ago, and I was stressed out, I went to a theater in another to see it, and after the three hours -- which flies by like a summer breeze -- I saw real people both on the screen and in the theater. It's a relaxing, human film, well worth the time to rent or screen for another time.

Sadly, the director of this film left this life too prematurely, but he and everyone associated with this film left us a real family and the joy of being human, despite all our faults, and all of life's cruelties, in a film set in a corporate world with lots of reflecting, cold windows (one of the recurring images of the films) and loneliness, but this world also a real family that has love and hope in it.

utterly compelling

[Marty-G · 9/10 · 18 January 2003]

Admittedly, I was a little skeptical that this long and fairly slow-moving movie would be able to hold my attention throughout its 173 minute running time - how wrong I was to be skeptical! Yi Yi is a thoroughly captivating film that I enjoyed immensely, and I completely enjoyed every moment of it. The director's technique of filming a lot through windows and at wide angles gives it an almost voyeuristic feel, but this doesn't alienate the viewer, instead it gives the feeling you're watching real lives unfold, a kind of privileged 'fly on the wall' style, and the 'slice-of-life' term often used to describe Yi Yi is appropriate. The film manages to balance humor, sensitivity, and emotion. It's beautifully shot, sensitively directed, and incredibly well acted by all involved. It sounds like a cliche to say it, but it is one of those movies that has everything: cute kids, family dysfunction, reminisces of decisions made in the past, regret, love, hope, and beauty. It's an uplifting piece of filmmaking but also tinged with sadness, very human, and utterly absorbing.

Such universal human interactions you'll rarely see so honestly...

[secondtake · 8/10 · 26 September 2010]

Yi Yi (2000)

Losing director Edward Lang recently (he died in 2007) was hard on the film world in general, as well as on Chinese language films with an international reach. And "Yi Yi" is a great, offbeat and yet accessible, likable film. What happens is very simple--an extended family is portrayed over several months as they enter relationships and life takes its usual tragic-comic toll. In a way, nothing in particular happens. There is no grand focus to the film in the usual sense (a murder, a love affair, a business deal gone wrong) but instead all of these things happen and overlap.

Some viewers will surely find it too dull and slow to withstand, but most viewers (the majority) once you give it a chance, will find the humanity bracing, the honesty of the acting and the writing (also by Lang) alive and well. It is filmed with straight forward storytelling expertise, but it is paced and edited with a higher order of intelligence. The sequence of disparate events, as young and old people fall in love and have close calls with death, is meshed together with intuitive brilliance.

It might somehow not be a great film. It might lack the larger turning point drama to make it stand out and make a viewer stand up. But it's a quiet, almost magical film with terrific acting. Maybe the largest thing I took away from it is how universal people's activities are. True, this is Taiwan and not mainland China, so things are more Westernized, but we can identify with everything so acutely it's quite amazing. A gem of a film, too long, but still a gem.

Do You See What I See?

[bobbyfranky · 10/10 · 20 November 2003]

Yang Yang the boy character in the film takes pictures to help those around him see what they cannot, and Yang the director takes pictures to help us see what we usually do not - that every moment of life is beautiful, deep, wonderful, rich.

Yang masterfully uses the everyday things of life on a least two levels - the literal and the figurative - beginning with the title of the film, which means literally "one one" (in Chinese) or "individual", but is presented as a Chinese "one" on the screen, followed slowly by another Chinese "one" appearing on the screen below it, which then becomes "two". (In Chinese, one is a single line, and two is two singles lines, one above the other.)

We are individuals, together. Our lives involve us, and others. Our lives involve relationships, get their meanings from relationships.

Relationships like that of little boy Yang Yang's encounters with girls, violent at first as they poke him from behind (in the back of his head, where he cannot see), and he pops balloons in their faces, scaring them. And then as the electricity builds between them, between Yang Yang and the girl in his school, just as in the nature film in the science lesson presented in the audio-visual classroom, passion as an electrical spark comes to his life.

There is Yang Yang's sister Ting Ting in the school of life too, with her ever-present potted plant that cannot seem to bloom. In class, she is told that overfeeding can cause it not to bloom - and Ting Ting herself tries too hard to bloom, longing for "music in her life" as she listens to the concert duet played by a man and a woman while she glances at her date, the boy called "Fatty" - he is slim but does he dine too much at life's banquet? (That question is answered later, as violent storms - storms of love, of life - pass overhead, not expected again "until Thursday".) Ting Ting wears white, and could be at her wedding, but she is not.

Their dad, NJ, does manage to find the music of his life once again when he encounters Sherry, the flame of his youth. They take a train back into time they remember as simple and romantic, but the memories of the past veil the complexities that existed then, and now, for the two of them.

NJ's wife Ming Ming wishes to escape. Her work colleague Nancy asks her, "You're still here?" to which she replies "Where can I go?"

Indeed, where can we go? No, we must stay and wake up each day, and try to remember that each day is a first time, that we never live the same day twice, as enchanting Mr. Ota, NJ's potential business partner, reminds him, and us.

Reflections multiply the beauty of this film beyond anyone's rating system

[primco · 10/10 · 25 May 2001]

I'd love to do a systematic investigation of every reflective shot in this movie. I can think of 10 stunning examples off the top of my head. In the director's comments track on the DVD you can hear Edward get noticeably excited when another reflective shot presents itself on screen. He points them all out, and it's true that the shots do seem to present themselves to the director. Although you must assume he had something to do with them, he confesses that it was magic that he discovered when he got to the location. Neither he nor I can explain what effect the superimposition of a night cityscape on a dark office space has on our understanding of the emotional world of the character sandwiched between the layers of light.

It seems there is magic at work all around. But it is not magic at all, as we learn from Mr. Ota's card trick -- merely attention. Maybe it's the reflection's ability to split out attention out into many streams of thought and quickly focus it back down that gives his scenes their vertiginous exhilaration. How else to explain the rush one feels from looking at a completely static shot where you can barely make out the actors?

He set out to make a film about family but I think he discovered he also wanted to make a film about life in Taipei. The reflections are the device that lets him make two movies at once. I think that's what is most special about each reflective shot. It is the instantaneous visual realization of an epic goal, and a reminder to the audience of both themes working in the movie.

His assuredness and gentleness astounds me.

breathtaking

[mattwakeman · 10/10 · 21 May 2001]

Films like American Beauty give rise to a huge amount of hype, they are hailed as being intelligent and having things to say. The reason that they stand out so much is that in the multiplexes in which they are shown, the cause of their difference to the family comedies and juvenile violence, is by actually having something called 'Character Development'.

This would appear to be a foreign issue to the majority of film makes. But luckily for some cinema goers, it is not a foreign area for people like Edward Yang. 'Yi Yi' is an exquisite observation of a family in which all the ages are represented at varying stages of life. From the father struggling to retain his sense of thinking that work is still important, his wife struggling with the illness of her mother. And his children learning in their own ways about what life has to offer, both of which like everyone else in the film are superbly acted.

Life rolls through every one of these characters and the annoying stereotypes that to a certain extent ruined American Beauty, for me anyway, are not here. Every character is superbly drawn and fantastically beautiful. For some people no doubt this film would be hell. Three hours of dialogue and a story which purports to show nothing more than life being lived. It is a great example of the art of writing however, that the characters remain with us long after the film has finished.

Although the entire cast was terrific one performance, for me, rose above the norm. It was Issey Ogata in the role of the cutting edge games designer Ota. His speech of our fear of newness when surely every day is unique really did take my breath away. It is a superbly shot film but the editing is excellent. So many times there were cross-fertilisation of ideas and story strands. When we could see the same relationship being played out in three very different stages amongst the members of the same family.

People may complain that maybe not a lot happens, that people don't really go anywhere and nothing is resolved. To me, however, this is a slice of life. Of all of our lives as we try to make sense not only of those around us but of ourselves. The closest recent film that i have seen to this is 'Magnolia' and while i would certainly recommend that whole-heartedly, there have been very few films that i have felt so accurately portrayed people as being people as 'Yi Yi'.

This is a film that reminds me of how good films can be. It also reminds me of how lucky I am to be able to enjoy and appreciate being moved by three hours of skill and effort. Simply breathtaking.

Contemplative and Contemporary

[christian94 · 10/10 · 17 July 2001]

This movie is a beautiful piece of art. Every shot of the movie is like a painting in its own right. Hats off to cinematographer Wei-han Yang for getting so many splendid images on film. From his serene reflective shots against a city nocturnal background, to innovative bird eye-view shots, to neat mirror shots, to the perspective of the bedridden grandmother in a coma, to cars passing by in front of the actors, to gorgeous corporate buildings... everything on camera was meticulously thought out.

Director Edward Yang uses this visual candy diligently and incorporates it nicely into his narrative. His script is very poetic and allows for a lot of reflective pause... which is, you've guessed it, supported by silent stunning images. The characters feel very real and their problems and concerns move us. The little boy is simply adorable and his perspective on life is quite refreshing. The dialogue is rich and intelligent and if you listen carefully you'll understand why this movie is so long... But the length does not drag the movie. Rather it allows us to think and to appreciate. There is enough material in this movie (both words and images) to have anyone musing for days if he so desires.

The ending of the movie is very well done and you don't really know if you feel like laughing or crying at that point, but you certainly know that you have just witnessed an amazing movie, a movie without proper description. Because like Yang chose to do, I should just be silent and let you enjoy.

insightful masterpiece

[miffymental · 9/10 · 28 April 2003]

This insightful, beautifully written and directed film contemplates on many things concerning the modern individual. The focus is a family in Taipei, the feelings, struggles, conflicts of family members at different life stages. The architecture is used as a part of the story, the surroundings the characters are in, always seem to tell us something about that particular situation. The effects of modernity and capitalism on the individual and traditional values are aptly analyzed and basic human emotions like love, loneliness, commitment and frustration are contemplated with a hard to match observation and tenderness. The little boy seems to verbalize the director's approach to film making: "We only understand half of everything because we can only see what's in front of us." and Yang's camera aptly shows us "the other side" of every situation. As a character says "with films, we experience many more lives than we actually can in one lifetime" and this film is a whole life experience in 3 hours.

About as good as film can get

[wjfickling · 10/10 · 20 February 2001]

This is without a doubt the best film of 2000, a masterpiece of sublety and understatement. It is long--just under three hours--but during that three hours, the entire range of human experience is covered. It is about life--that's it. But, to make a statement about life, you have to illustrate it with lives, and this Yang does exquisitely. There is a tragic undercurrent running through this film, and while I was watching it I thought of Thoreau's observation that "most men lead lives of quiet desperation." Yet, in spite of the travails the film's characters undergo, it is ultimately a work of affirmation. This is about as good as the art of cinema can get.

Consider Phlebas

[tieman64 · 12 January 2014]

"People adore fences, but Nature doesn't give a hoot. Solitude is a human presumption." - Barbara Kingslover

Like all of Edward Yang's pictures, "Yi Yi" is set in Taipei, the capital of Taiwan. Framed by a wedding and a funeral, and so union and separation, the film charts the trials and tribulations of at least four generations of Taiwanese men, women and children. Translated into English, Yang's title means "one one", or "each one".

The film itself is preoccupied with "ones". Though Yang immerses us in a tapestry of relationships, each of his characters remain irrevocably alone. There's a dying grandmother, two schoolgirls, several men, women, husbands, wives, co-workers, past lovers...a smörgåsbord of interpersonal but impersonal drama. Everyone's oblivious to everyone else, forever trapped in their own private boxes.

"We haven't yet surpassed fighting and killing games because we haven't fully understood ourselves," a character says. "Yi Yi" itself posits human suffering as a failure of both perception and self-reflexivity. Our characters don't know what they want, why they hurt, act, how others see them or why and how others feel. Rectifying this is a character called Yang Yang, a precious eight year old who delights in taking photographs of "hidden" and "invisible things", including the backs of the heads of others. "You can't see it," he says, "I'm helping you."

It is through Yang Yang that Edward Yang develops the film's autobiographical subplot. He turns the film's eight year old into a miniature version of himself, a budding sage who explores the catacombs of Taiwan and stumbles upon profundities which everyone else ignores. "Can we only know half the truth?" the kid asks, and resolves to become a photographer, determined to push the limits of human perspective.

More than Yang's previous films – most of which are essentially Antonioni with rice - "Yi Yi" portrays contemporary capitalism as alienating, isolating and conducive of depression. "I'm never happy," one character mourns. "How can we be happy when we don't love what we do?" comes the reply. The World Health Organisation itself estimates that depression will be the second largest contributor to global death/disease by 2020, but such rates in urban Japan and China are already exorbitantly high; the very conditions capitalism requires negatively impacts children and workers.

But if Antonioni is noxious and suffocating, "Yi Yi" portrays a more beautiful form of alienation. Yang's film is filled with boxes, squares, human beings immaculately framed by walls, windows, doorways or lost in the aural cocoons afforded by headphones. Lovers meet under bridges, humans pass one another in hallways, brush anonymous shoulders in elevators or hang suspended above highways in their pressure-cooker apartments. Yang's urban spaces are harsh, but beautiful, with sprinkles of green and patches of warm blacks and red. With Yang, characters and environment seem inseparable. Often his static shots of places and spaces seem more interesting, and thrilling, than the human beings who mope before them. Elsewhere his images evoke Edward Hopper ("Night on the El Train", "The Wine Shop", "Automat", "Night Windows", "House at Dusk", "New York Movie"), with their obsessions with layered windows and frames within frames.

Like Robert Altman's "Short Cuts", Yang has scenes bleed into or foreshadow others. Unlike Altman, these connections are obvious: the laughter of one sequence morphs into the cries heard in the next, a husband's recounting of his romantic past is inter-cut with his daughter's baby steps into first love, and the sound of a thunderstorm on a school presentation becomes the literal raindrops which assault a street corner.

"Overfeeding may not improve growth. It may hamper reproductive drives. Some of you can't bloom," a teacher says, a speech with speaks to the ills of Yang's cast, but also bleeds into the very next sequence. Here a child is gestating, the baby's ultrasound image echoing the teacher's words: "It begins to acquire signs of human life."

"Yi Yi" ends with the death of a grandmother, a moment of mysticism borrowed from Kenji Mizoguchi's "Ugetsu Monogatari". The woman's death, which corresponds to the birth of the aforementioned child, shatters everyone, but also, for the first time in the film, unifies Yang's cast in their suffering. Private, differing anguishes then become one singular anguish, at which point Yang Yang delivers a little metaphorical monologue in which he urges people to "listen", "discover where others went", "tell everyone" and "bring others to visit". The film then ends on a note of irony. If opening scenes portray alienation amidst a social gathering, Yang's climax portrays hugs and kisses at an event in which humans are brought to be torn apart. Twos become ones, divisions become erased, though only in a fanciful sense. Taipei is Taipei and nothing's changed. "I feel old," Yang Yang says. Edward Yang died of cancer in 2007. "Yi Yi" was his last picture.

8.5/10 – Overlong but exquisitely shot. See "The Devil Probably" and "La Chinoise".

A Nutshell Review: Yi Yi

[DICK STEEL · 10/10 · 15 March 2011]

I have found another film to put into my all time greatest list, and that is Edward Yang's Yi Yi. After watching all his earlier works, this one marks that epitome of perfection, of a craftsman's finest after honing his skill through time, that most outside of Taiwan will probably remember the great director by, if not for it being easily available on DVD compared to the rest of the early ones. While those are no pushovers themselves, Yi Yi is perhaps something that can be said as complete, covering like most of Edward Yang's films, a spectrum of human emotions, here centered on an upper middle class family and unravelling its close to three hour runtime through three broad narrative threads intertwining together perfectly, with sensitivity, humanity, and poignancy even.

Bookended by a wedding and a funeral, Yi Yi follows a family where each member struggles with their own personal demons, with their respective story arc taking place to address just that, and providing that slice of life from their respective perspectives. There's the father NJ (Wu Nien-Jen) who battles two fronts involving work, where his fellow company directors are seeking a new line of business through a partnership with a famed Japanese game maker but with conflicting business ethics and ideology with himself, and that of his personal life, with his family put on a thin line as he spends considerable time away in Tokyo with his first love Sherry (Ko Su-Yun), reminiscing the good old days with that hint of a temptation whether he's about to throw everything away, for one old flame.

Then there's the budding first brush of love and a love triangle between his daughter Ting Tin (Kelly Lee), and their neighbour Li Li (Adriene Lin) and her boyfriend Fatty (Yu Pang Chang), where complication arise from being best of friends with Li Li, and yet filled with the dilemmas stemming from the indecision of others, offering a good contrast between two teenage girls who deal with their emotions in vastly different manners, leading to a tragic outcome. Then there's the scene stealer with Jonathan Chang's Yang Yang, the youngest son in the family who's having a horrid time in school, being the thorn in the eye of a female prefect hell bent on making his life miserable. His story arc is perhaps one that brings us back to our own childhood, with nary a care in the world, and living life in quite cavalier terms with various shenanigans, some comical of course, and like most children, live in their own world through the picking up of a hobby, and yet having lessons to impart to adults.

There are minor subplots galore in this film, with support characters providing that rich tapestry for Yi Yi, which is also subtitled A One and a Two, strokes in the Chinese language that identical strokes horizontally turns the character One into a Two, sequentially one after another, like a musical beat promising a grand oeuvre to come from Edward Yang the conductor. There's the comatose grandmother whose recuperation of sorts at home brings about some stress to Ting Ting because of her guilt conscious, and that of NJ's wife Min Min (Elaine Jen), who disappears mid way into the film from a depressive breakdown. And Yang Yang's uncle Ah Di (Chen Hsi Sheng) who has to juggle placating his wife Xiao Yan (Xiao Shu Shen) toward the presence of his ex Yun Yun (Zeng Xin Yi) whom he gravitates to given the ups and downs in his financial status.

In some ways Yi Yi is a film that puts the spotlight on the various aspects of romance, about the first love who had proved elusive, of past romances and the examination of What Ifs. There's a scene which was expertly and brilliantly edited and intertwined between NJ's arc and his daughter's relationship, hinting at a possible repeat of events that happened one generation earlier, that really hammered home the eventual outcome from a parallel under very uncanny circumstances. This theme may not be new in Edward's repertoire of films, but the way it was handled here just made it very much heartfelt, inevitably allowing us to pass judgement on the characters involved, though in no ways objectively done.

It's three hours long, but it's the three hours you will not want to end as you get pulled into the family issues, and find yourself engaged on the emotional level and feel that sense of belonging with the central family, brought to life through wonderful performances all round, from the little Jonathan Chang to the veteran Wu Nien-Jen. Edward Yang's voice cannot be more pronounced through each of the characters put into the film, revisiting themes and issues discussed in earlier films, or in this one, I really liked how he crafted Ota (Issei Ogata) the Japanese game maker, with dialogue that really made plenty of sense, dispensing keen observations and life lessons to impart from the filmmaker.

For a film about life and its struggles in general, Yi Yi comes up tops, and I felt it had inspired other similar films that attempted to examine urban family life across a full spectrum of emotions, such as that in Kiyoshi Kurosawa's Tokyo Sonata very recently. Yi Yi is without a doubt one of Edward Yang's greatest and one of my personal favourites to date, and is a film that has to be experienced at least once by any film buff, and be prepared to be emotionally blown away by a filmic masterpiece. A must watch!

Less enthused than others

[elision10 · 6/10 · 9 January 2022]

This plot focuses on a father, his teenage daughter, and his 8-year-old boy. The stories of the father and daughter are for the most part, respectively, soap opera and melodrama, and not compelling. (The daughter is, for me, inert.)

It's the little boy who is a wonder, pure gold, and makes the movie worth seeing.

Overlong, dull, obvious

[john-2448 · 3/10 · 2 July 2006]

The biggest problem with YiYi is that it lasts for at least an hour too long, without saying much in the process. Another major flaw was the way that it spells everything out, without trusting to the audience to pick up subtly expressed connections and motivations. Two examples readily come to mind. When the characters one at a time talk to the comatose, but off-screen grandmother, I realized that this was akin to a form of traditional ancestor worship. Then the main character, the businessman, says directly that this talking is like praying. A more blatant example was the inter-cutting and overly obvious parallels between the father's past as discussed in Tokyo and his daughters present back in Taipei. This is where good editing could have made the film more thought-provoking, less obvious and more interesting.

Another problem for me was the fact that I couldn't connect or care about any of the characters. Possibly this was because they had trouble expressing emotion and interacting with each other, but I felt uninvolved with all of them. A pretty disappointing feat for a nearly 3 hour family character study. The camera work was also very static and dispassionate. At first, views through empty doorways, awaiting characters to walk through them, and long shots of couples seemed interesting. But their repetition and lack of variation made these distancing techniques become stultifying. This was especially true of the many long takes that occurred towards the end of the film.

I also thought the main character showed a fairly limited acting range, while some of the crying scenes were given over to poor acting. Overall, I was left mostly bored and wishing I had chosen a better and shorter film for the evening.

We can't see how our head behind us looks like

[K-Line · 10/10 · 19 December 2004]

Edward Yang's Yi Yi is a film made in Taipei, the biggest city in Taiwan, and he demonstrates the sadness of the people who work hard but can not find out the meaning of life. He successfully uses many reflection-frames to suggest to people that life is not just working hard and making money.

The first reflection-frame happens when grandma is suddenly sent to the hospital. Yang has the camera focus on the hospital windows during the dialogue between NJ and his brother-in-law, A-Di, so we can see their reflection on the windows. Reflection-frames in each film do not always have the same meanings and they depend on different situations. Therefore, I suggest that Yang tried to show that people can see their reflection by windows or mirror anytime, but they are too busy to look and see how they have changed.Also, they are afraid to face the truth in the reflection because the truth is not what they want.

A-Di's reflection on the windows shows us his dishonesty. He always has trouble with money, and his promise that he will give back NJ's money soon is not true. On the other hand, NJ actually does not care much about money. Moreover, in this reflection, there is one window frame set between them, and their reflection is separated by that window frame. The separation suggests that NJ is different than A-Di, and the value of money is not as an important to NJ as A-Di. Also, A-Di's reflection in the framed window takes up more space than NJ's reflection. Yang may suggest that the majority of people in the big city are like A-Di who has the ambition to make a great deal of money. People in the city are unhappy and unsatisfied with the property they have, so they spend more time to make more money. However, NJ taking up a small space in the framed reflection represents the minority of people who struggle to find work that is interesting to them. Mostly, people whose work interest them can not make enough money for their family.

Besides, Yang can be connected with NJ's reflection, which takes up a small and narrow space in the frame. He chooses the work which he is interested, but his films hardly make money even through he makes great films. Referencing to Yang's background, he graduated from an electric engineering department in good school. He can work in a highly technical company and have a good paying job, like NJ. However, he predicts that he will be unhappy as NJ is. Therefore, he chooses to make films as his job and enjoy it whether or not his film can make money as commercial film.

The reflection-frame in the hospital is an ironic: NJ is worrying about the situation of his mother-in-law, but A-Di is worrying about his financial trouble. Because A-Di was born and raised by the person who is in the emergency room, he should show more worry than NJ, but A-Di doesn't. This situation reminds me of Noriko in Ozu's Tokyo Story (1953). Noriko shows more care to her dead husband's parents than other members in the family. Ozu is a Japanese and made "Tokyo Story" half a century ago; however, Yang is a Taiwanese and made Yi Yi almost fifty years after "Tokyo Story". Even through they use different film techniques, both Ozu and Yang arouse viewers to balance the importance between money and family.

Soap opera in excelsis

[jandesimpson · 9/10 · 29 April 2002]

I don't think the term "soap opera" existed before the widespread growth of TV when it started to be used to define a genre of entertainment that dramatised the everyday lives of a cross section of interrelated characters that could theoretically go on for ever. The formula for the success of the longest running, the British "Coronation Street" and "Eastenders" for instance, is self-identification, the depiction in a heightened dramatic form of the sort of problems we all live with, bringing a degree of comfort and assurance to the audience watching a fictionalisation of its collective angst. When we liken a finite form such as a film to "soap" we tend to use the term in a derogatory sense isofar as we see it as dramatising trivia. However we must be careful about this as there have been examples of very high cinematic art that conform to the conventions of soap opera, "The Best Years of our Lives" for instance in the '40s, the German "Heimat" a few years back and more recently Edward Yang's "A One and a two". It is that very element of everyday anxiety viewed with such perception and truth that makes the Taiwanese film so compelling. Yang has moved away from the youth violence of "A Brighter Summer Day". His middle class family is involved with commerce and careers. However noone has an easy time of it. Each member of the family is plagued in their different ways by their inadequacy in coping with the infirmity of their eldest member. At the same time the father is troubled by his work and the complication of the reappearance in his life of a woman he met many years ago, his wife is seeking spiritual advice from a Buddhist guru, his teenage daughter becomes the butt of romantic jealousy from the girl next door. But it is the 8 year old son who seems most able to come to terms with the vicissitudes of life. He survives the spiteful taunts of his little girl peers and a bullying schoolmaster. His defence is an enquiring mind which he applies to his surroundings with a Kaspar Hauser fortitude and innocence. We already know that if any of these characters will be a survivor it is this youngest. Yang shoots the film with an almost Ozu-like purity, preferring long held shots rather than camera movements, although unlike Ozu he does not make a fetish of this. Often we see action through windows but not at a distance as in "Rear Window" so everything has an immediacy. It will need a few more viewings to assess whether "A One and a Two" is on the same level as Yang's earlier "A Brighter Summer Day". At the moment something tells me that is does not quite measure up to that savage masterpiece. Its very gentleness could be the reason, although I recognise this is hardly a valid argument. After three viewings it remains for me a rather elusive work, compelling in its way but curiously difficult to evaluate.

We'll Look Back on This One as a Masterpiece

[evanston_dad · 10/10 · 5 March 2008]

"Yi yi" is a lovely film, pulsing with warmth and humanity. It tells the story of a Taiwanese family coping with the everyday fears and anxieties of which life is made. In the end, the movie suggests, there are no trivial moments in our lives, even if they seem so at the time -- any one person's life is an accumulation of both the trivial and the significant. What makes it worth getting out of bed every day is the fact that we will never live a day exactly like the one before it.

The structure of "Yi yi" mirrors its theme -- the film is a gradual accumulation of quiet moments that build toward something deeply moving. We watch the father of the household reconnect with an old flame, only to see his disappointment when the realities of his past don't match his idealized memories of them. We watch the mother battle depression and the overwhelming sense that she lives day to day doing nothing with herself or her life. She seeks meaning by leaving her family to spend time at a religious commune, but she learns that the answers she's looking for aren't to be found there. We watch the adolescent daughter timidly flirt with sex and dating, a young girl only beginning to unearth the complexities of what it means to become an adult. But my favorite character is the 8-year-old son, who takes pictures with his camera because he wants to show other people what they're not able to see for themselves. He's a little boy who is old enough to understand that there are things he can tell people that they don't already know, but he's too young yet to know how to communicate those things. One has to wonder if this character is the young alter-ego of the film's writer and director, Edward Yang.

"Yi yi" isn't flashy. It doesn't intertwine all of these characters' story lines with clever narrative sleight of hand; it doesn't pile coincidences on top of coincidences like these multi-narrative ensemble films frequently do. It's not histrionic, and it doesn't build to some overheated climax. It's not interested in doing any of those things. It unfolds the way life unfolds, and it makes us deeply care about these people, and even makes us love them in a way, flaws and all. It reminded me very much of an Ozu film, with its static camera that chooses to sit back and observe rather than tell us how to feel.

"Yi yi" feels like a modest work of art while you're watching it, but it lingers in the head and its power builds the longer you have to muse over it. It's the kind of movie I have a feeling we'll look back on in twenty years and recognize as a masterpiece.

Grade: A+

A Quiet Masterpiece

[truemythmedia · 10/10 · 7 June 2019]

Yi Yi is about life and everything it contains. It's about love and heartbreak; remembering and forgetting; creating and destroying; budding friendships and vicious rivalries; success and failure; marriage and infidelity; happiness and depression the beauty of music and also of silence; the passage of time; and most of all life and death. How does this one movie say so much about so many things? It takes it's time, it expects the viewer to pay attention and work with the director to create a world that expands beyond the edges of the frame. It allows you time to appreciate what's happening in front of you, but it also asks that you bring your own prior experiences with you. This is a film that I believe could be watched at various moments of your life, and you could get something new from it every time. It's a film that looks at the curious age of young childhood, the uncertainty that comes with being a teenager, the regrets of middle age, and the reflection of old age. Edward Yang takes time in crafting wonderfully memorable characters that feel tactile and believable. The trials and challenges faced by the members of the Taipei family are not world changing, but they do change their lives. They're an everyday family, trying their best to live life to the fullest (whatever that means), doing their best to figure out where they fit in the world. To call this film anything but a masterpiece would be an insult to cinema.

Life in its Subtleties

[Semih · 10/10 · 25 April 2001]

A movie that is true and honest to its audience, Yi yi captures you in your seat for 3 hours, and then stays with you for many more. Watching a movie on a big screen we get used to seeing larger than life images and situations. This movie brings all those back down to a level where you can relate to. So much is going on in this film, yet the presentation is so subtle that the 3 hours is barely enough to see what exactly is unfolding infront of your eyes. The characters are NOT representations of certain archetypes defined by a character phrase. Instead, they are as simple on the outside and as complex on the inside as you and I. Snippets of yesterdays memories, todays hopes and tomorrows expectations arise and we eventually see a fact that we have been ignoring for years: That our eyes are on the front of our heads therefore we can only be seeing half the truth and whatever happens behind us remains unknown. This will make more sense after you see the film... A one and a two and a ... Gimme a break, gimme a break... Break me another piece of that Yi Yi Bar...

The most of beautiful film I have seen.

[h0rnet · 10/10 · 23 April 2001]

This is the first film I've seen which prompt me to comment about it. "Yi Yi" is the most beautiful film I have seen. It deals with issues revolving around a "typical" Chinese family in Taiwan, focusing on the father, his daughter and son. All of this is revolve around a grandmother who is in a coma.

The father (NJ) was a family man, who had to deal with pass relationship and his opportunist business partners. He as Ota (his Japanese associate) puts it: "A good guy". He is also a rather reserve person, holding onto his opinion without making the other person "loose face". Finally I felt NJ was loyal both towards his partners and family. To me NJ represented typical Chinese "composure" and emotion compare to Westerners, such as not hugging his wife when she was distraught or not being blunt with his thoughts.

Ting-Ting, the daughter had to deal with relationship and friendship issues, at the same time she seemed to blame herself for her grandmother's condition. I felt Ting-Ting expressed the most emotion in the film due to her role as a teenager growing up.

The gem of the film was NJ's 8 year old son. The youngster IMHO sums up what were in other's mind. He was naive, determine, playful and thoughtful and such a natural in front of the camera! His letter towards the grandmother's funeral at the end well, bought tears to my eye. *sniff*

I also like the performance by Ota, I love his ways of explaining things. Could this be the Japanese way of doing business? :)

I love the subtle camera work such as focusing on NJ's wife's confession via the table mirror. Or of linking Sherry/NJ's stories of their childhood relationship to Ting-Ting's relationship with her date Fatty and or with the son's obsession with the school monitor. I also like how scenes were lingered on longer then usual to create more atmosphere and makes the viewer wonder. One thing I did wonder about was the lack of soundtrack throughout the film, why?

This is the first film I've seen directed by Edward Yang and I was most impressed with it and it has prompted me to check out his previous films.

Less than meets the eye

[grahamclarke · 31 July 2003]

I find myself largely at odds with the overwhelming and unanimous praise that "Yi Yi" has won. While my reaction to the film was positive, my enthusiasm is far cooler than most.

There is nothing innovative about "Yi Yi". True, not many movies observe the trials and tribulations of a pretty ordinary family. The fact that Yang does this for close on three hours while holding ones interest certainly is an indication of his directorial skills, as are the convincing performances by all. But when it's all over not a lot remains. Ordinary lives can been fascinating when perceived with an astuteness which is informative and enriching for the viewer. That is not the case with "Yi Yi". The characters are portrayed with a certain compassion and affection, but far less is gleaned than one would expect having given close to three hours of ones times to the film.

My guess is that the supposed foreignness of a Taipei family holds much attraction for western audiences, though nothing in their behavior highlights any appreciable difference between east and west. This adds to the film's accessibility.

Prior to his Hollywood career, Ang Lee's "Eat Drink Man Woman" was too an observation of a Tapei family and vastly superior in all ways to "Yi Yi". Lee's film was indeed an emotionally and culturally enriching experience.

My attention was drawn to this film by the vast amount of rave reviews it received. It is difficult to remain impartial to such endorsement, hard as one may try and naturally my expectations were high.

While worth watching, I feel it's a case of less than meets the eye.

A few nice moments, but Yang tries too hard to be "poignant" and "symbolic"

[CHendri887 · 6/10 · 25 June 2001]

Although I was touched by a few scenes in this film, I felt mostly like Edward Yang was trying too hard to be "poignant" and "symbolic." Almost every scene is riddled with overly symbolic material that just made me roll my eyes or yell at my television. Examples of this include the scene where Yang Yang is watching the movie on lightening with its obvious sexual allusions and then sees the underpants of the girl who he secretly has a crush on. Another example was the whole cutting back and forth scene from Sherry and NJ in Tokyo back to NJ's children who are living out parts of NJ's childhood. I was like, "Oooo, deep, Mr. Yang. Deep." In addition, there is much annoying screaming in this movie. This is not something I usually notice in films, but I think there must have been a good ten to fifteen minutes of women (a few men) making annoying screaming noises. Another thing that bugged me about this film on video (no fault of Yang's) was that the subtitles were almost impossible to read for much of the film. Didn't the film company check this out when they were editing the film with subtitles? And finally, though this wasn't always the case, I guess I felt annoyed by the way the characters were all unconscious victims of the Confucion patriarchy/matriarchy and this fact was never brought to light by Yang. Though there are moments of sympathy in this film, I often feel this when I watch films with a Chinese focus. Hey, the archy hurts everyone, baby. Empathy is healing. Make sure you bust out a magnifying glass for the subtitles and some eye drops for eye rolling if you rent this film.

"Yi Yi" - few things are as simple as ones and twos...

[Sergeant_Tibbs · 10/10 · 13 November 2008]

In the early new century, late Taiwanese director Edward Yang broke out from under the radar with his epic modern masterpiece and last film Yi yi (2000), a tender refreshing subtle drama centred around a domestic family. Remaining one of the most critically acclaimed films of the century, it's a shame that Yang left us before making another film but did broaden eyes to his other obscure works such as A Brighter Summer Day (1991) and The Terrorizers (1986); as all the practiced methods in these films come to their highest point of intimacy in Yi yi. Shuffling between a range of moods and themes, the focus and basic premise of Yi yi is a middle-class family in Taipei over the course of one year, beginning at a wedding and ending at a funeral. The characters disband and we follow each subplot discovering and developing each of them; the father (N.J.) spends time with his long lost first love, imagining what his life could have been and studying his past behaviour; the mother (Min-Min) who feels trapped in her status of housewife; the daughter (Ting-Ting) who discovers first love; and the son (Yang-Yang) who evaluates his surroundings. Other prominent characters include the husband and bride of the afore mentioned wedding and the soon to be deceased.

The pivotal theme of Yi yi is in general the love we give and receive all throughout life – although this is not demonstrated in any chronological order within the film. First, there's the love a baby receives (which the bride from the wedding carries throughout the film) from the whole family and the parents – of which this mutual and constant love remains for eternity. Then as a young child, Yang-Yang, he just begins to notice girls and the effect they have on him. His sister plays the teenager representation, who seeks the opposite gender for sexual attention; a supposed illusion of love. As an adult, or when maturity is apparently complete and they're getting married, there's the love from the family and the strong attraction between the couple themselves. Later in middle age, when possibly this appeal fades (as presented by the fact N.J. and Min-Min take some time apart) there's the assumed love from ones children, peers and the sensation of reminiscing past 'loves'. Once one reaches old age there's the love from and to the whole family. Another theme is the representation of modern family life, working on superstition, traditions and behaviour. This being shown by the fact the entire family lives near or together, especially when one is weak. Also, the wedding is intentionally set on a particular date just because it's a supposedly lucky day on the almanac calendar (also giving their child a 'lucky' name). It also shows how materials and possessions are useless without any form of love.

N.J. is one of my favourite and most fascinating characters in cinema. He's passive, understanding and rarely aggressive; even stereotyped by his colleagues as the 'honest-looking type'. For example, when he witnesses an unfriendly brawl due to an unwelcome guest, he avoids joining in and waits for it to calm down before considering making his entrance. But by this disturbance, he feels the occasion is ruined and kindly refuses to join though he doesn't judge any of the people involved. When Yang-Yang prefers to eat McDonalds rather than food at the wedding he indulges and makes no fuss. After this particular scene, he encounters an ex-girlfriend by an elevator who confronts him for standing her up at a date several years ago. N.J. does not respond. Throughout a much later set meeting in the third act, we discover that N.J. was in fact the nervous type, which leads us to evaluate his current behaviour against his old one – there's the use of parallels by having his study of his past behaviour over his daughter and her boyfriend's first date, following these patterns. Though he has reached a new stage in his life and he's finally comfortable with the woman, he doesn't feel the attraction. When it comes to business, he is very calculating, understanding what to do but when he feels pressure he escapes to music. Plus he is co-operative but not dominating.

Due to all these themes and the effect of personal impact it had on me, I refer to this film as the most enlightening and life-affirming film of all-time for me. This is mostly because the film has entirely convinced me that its theories are true and they are very comforting and therapeutic, despite the equal balance of happiness and sadness. According to the director, Yi yi literally translates to "A One and a Two…", like the phrase bands say before their performance. It's as if everyone is only getting ready and this is one big rehearsal. Or it is one big irony because, as Edward Yang has stated; 'few things in life are as simple as ones and twos", unlike the situations in the film. It is an incredibly rewarding and satisfying experience, if emotionally draining. There's also a very reassuring quote from the film I love; "My uncle says… we live three times as long since man invented movies. It means movies give us twice what we get from daily life. For example, murder. We never killed anyone, but we all know what it's like to kill. That's what we get from the movies." This is the natural beauty of film and my inspiration. I think the thought of this film could carry me throughout my whole life.

One of my favourite films of all-time.

10/10

Why Yi Yi?

[AhmedSpielberg99 · 6/10 · 7 August 2019]

With beautiful and expressive shots, sensitive and eloquent direction, incredible acting by all involved, and a plethora of brilliantly quotable lines, add to that the fact it's considered a "slice-of-life" film, Yi Yi really could have been easily one of my favourite films of all time. Alas, I can't even say that I liked it!

Two main reasons this film didn't resonate with me nearly as much as I expected are that: I didn't find the vast majority of the characters to be interesting, and I couldn't see why this is considered to be a slice-of-life film in the first place.

The only character I was almost constantly interested in is Yang-Yang. I found the relationship between N.J. and Sherry quite absorbing and engrossing as well as the scenes with N.J. and his Japanese friend; I can't say I really cared about the character of N.J. as I was supposed to be.

I couldn't care less about everything related to N.J.'s wife, teenage daughter, brother and business partners. Apart from one scene N.J.'s wife shares with N.J.'s mother that was a bit emotional, I found the film emotionally flat and almost fell asleep every time I see these above-mentioned characters. I found the story-line of Ting-Ting to be one of the most boring and uneventful I've seen in any film. Let alone the fact this film is 3 hours long!

A slice-of-life is a term used to describe a piece of art or literature that shows or depicts the ordinary details of real life. And I'm enamored of any film or novel that can be classified under this, so to speak, sub-genre. The thing is I couldn't see that Yi Yi fits this description. What I saw, in the first 30 minuted in particular, are many of uninteresting characters acting in an absurd way. I really couldn't see that this film has mundane real-life events as most people do.

(6.5/10)

Few moments not worth 3 hours

[peffs · 3/10 · 19 January 2001]

Edward Yang's film is bleak. If life, love and dying were this depressing, I'd wish to remain forever 8 years old. While there were a few poignant moments, these were few and far between, causing numerous people in the audience to leave before the touching conclusion three hours later. Most of the characters seemed to dread life, love, and the emotions that come with being human. And the women all seemed bent on destruction, sexually, spiritually, and emotionally. Breakdowns, crying fits, and indecision seem to plague these women with no sign of joy, humor, or compassion seeming to trickle into the cracks of their self-pitying prisons. Where are the redemptions, the creative sparks, and the connections with each other that keeps us alive? Only the young son and the Japanese software genius, Ota, seem to have a grasp of the beauty of giving something wondrous back to the world while also enjoying the pleasures and humor in life. Sorry to disagree with the majority of critics, but I can only recommend this film to foreign and art-house film lovers.