Here’s a film from Taiwan that is beautiful to look at, steeped in intelligent psychological issues, and exquisitely sensitive. Tired of rapid-paced, empty fare? Try this film for a walk on the other side of the planet.

Historical Background: Edward Yang had been making films for nearly twenty years at the time that Yi Yi took the world by storm in 2000, but most of his work had slipped under the radar of Western critics. Yi Yi was the first of Yang's films to be distributed in America, though some of his earlier works screened by the art house circuit included That Day, on the Beach (1983), Taipei Story (1985), The Terrorizers (1986), A Brighter Summer Day (1991), A Confucian Confusion (1994), and Mahjong (1996). Yang was born in Shanghai but grew up in Taipei. Yang spent time in American, attending USC for one semester and working as a systems designer in Seattle before turning to filmmaking. It is not surprising, therefore, that Yi Yi is full of Western-friendly references (such as McDonalds and Batman) as well as situated in a busy urban center not terribly unlike American cities. Yi Yi won a flood of awards, including being voted the Best Foreign Film of 2000 by both the New York and Los Angeles Critics Circles in a year in which Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon was also in the running! Yi Yi also earned Yang the Best Director Award from the Cannes Film Festival. Most surprising of all, however, was its selection as the best film of the year by the National Society of Film Critics, making it the first non-English language film ever picked by that group for its top award.

The Story: This film utilizes one of those mutli-thread character-ensemble approaches the we associate with American soap operas and at 173 minutes of running time, it has plenty of time in which to develop several of those threads. The cross-linking between the strands of the story is based on the familial connections of the Jian family, who live in present day Taipei, a modern city on the Island of Taiwan. The father in this family, N.J. (Wu Nien-Jen), the closest thing to a central protagonist, is in his forties and lives in an apartment in a high-rise with his wife, Min-Min (Elaine Jin), her mother (Tang Ru-yun), and their two children, teenage daughter Ting-Ting (Kelly Lee) and eight year-old son Yang-Yang (Jonathan Chang). Min-Min has a brother named A-Di (spelled Ah-Di in some cast listings) (Chen Xisheng) and the film opens with the wedding of A-Di to a very pregnant Xiao Yan (Xiao Shushen). We quickly discover that A-Di is somewhat flaky. He is heavily into astrology and has put off marrying his expectant bride waiting for an astrologically fortuitous day. The family pictures at the wedding provide some comic infusion. The adults are stiff and distinctly un-familial. The young girls at the wedding are terribly fond of tormenting little Yang-Yang, poking him and stealing his shoes, for example. More comedy and drama is provided by the arrival of A-Di’s ex-finance, Yun-Yun (Zeng Xiyi), who makes a loud scene by denouncing the bride for having stolen her intended. This is the first of several love-triangles to grace this film. A-Di can’t keep his mind off his old flame and visits her after being thrown out, on one occasion, by his wife. Later, Yun-Yun shows up at the baby shower for A-Di and Xiao Yan’s newborn child, precipitating a near riot.

The grandmother is overwhelmed by all of the commotion and is taken home. There she suffers a stroke, possibly while taking out the trash that Ting-Ting was supposed to have taken out earlier. She is found by a neighbor and rushed to the hospital. Min-Min returns from the wedding, receives the news, and rushes to the hospital to check on her mother. The grandmother survives but in a coma. She is returned home after a few days with instructions to the family to turn her every hour or so and to talk to her (even though she cannot respond) to provide her with mental stimulation (see my review of Talk to Her for a discussion of the merits of talking to comatose patients whether or not they can hear the conversation consciously). Min-Min asks the family to share in the task of talking with grandma but Yang-Yang is at a loss to do so and Ting-Ting is ridden with guilt that the stroke may have been her fault. Min-Min is overcome emotionally, though more by self-pity than concern for her mother. She is upset that she ends up saying the same thing to her mother each time because her life is so uninteresting. “I live a blank,” she says. “What am I doing everyday?” N.J. suggests that they can have the nurse read the newspaper to the grandmother, which gets them all off the hook for having to care for her. Min-Min decides she has to escape and runs off to a Buddhist retreat in the mountains for spiritual help from the “Master” (who later shows up ostensibly to get to know Min-Min’s family but mainly to solicit a donation). Min-Min is largely an absent character for the rest of the film.

N.J. is now effectively in charge of running the household but, as it turns out, he is only “ineffectively” in charge. He is in business with three partners running a computer software outfit. Their main investor is closer to a mobster than a businessman and is threatening to pull their funding unless they significantly improve their profit margin. The partners have come up with the idea of moving into computer games, partly because they are confident the idea will appeal to their financier. The talk is to sign a contract with either Mr. Ota (Issei Ogata), a Japanese computer-game guru of sorts, or one of his copycats, Ato. N.J. is a man of ethics and simple honesty, but his three partners are disreputable shysters. Ironically, they ooze sleaze so openly that they routinely call upon N.J. to handle negotiations so as to exploit his appearance of genuineness. N.J. is called upon to play “hard-to-get” with Mr. Ota while the others consult with Ato. Mr. Ota, however, is something of a deep philosopher and he and N.J. take a shine to one another as kindred spirits. As Min-Min is seeking her spiritual comfort from a Buddhist retreat, N.J. is deriving Confucian wisdom (about risk vs. magic and ethics in business) from the man he is assigned to deceive. Since N.J. doesn’t speak Japanese and Mr. Ota doesn’t speak Chinese, the two converse in broken English. Ato ultimately gets the contract instead of Ota because Ato turns out to be a woman with big breasts that appeal to the company’s financial backer.

N.J. has another concurrent psychic crisis. During the opening wedding scene, he had a brief chance encounter with an old lover – his first love and, perhaps, his only passionate love, Sherry (Su-Yun Ko). It’s been over twenty years since N.J. walked out on Sherry without so much as a goodbye or an explanation. She waited two days for him and her life fell apart after being abandoned by him, until recently. After one marriage and divorce, she is now married to an American businessman who does business in Asia. She encourages N.J. to give her a call. The two meet up in Tokyo during N.J.’s business trip to consult with Mr. Ota. The same old chemistry is still there, right down to the sweaty palms as they walk and hold hands. Sherry finally demands the explanation for N.J.’s non-appearance twenty years earlier. He begins by indicating that all of his reasons now sound stupid but ultimately offers this one: “You pushed me to become an engineer. Did you ever ask me what I wanted?” The irony, of course, is that he became an engineer and married a woman who cares even less about what he wants than did Sherry. The two wistfully part realizing that the same love is still there but the same problem is still there as well. Sherry wants to possess N.J. to satisfy her own needs but has little interest in what his needs might be. This relationship dynamic is the main point of the film since it is a point that could be made about very nearly every relationship in the film.

Meanwhile, with both Min-Min and N.J. totally consumed with their own psychological issues, Ting-Ting and Yang-Yang are virtually unsupervised and without care. Ting-Ting’s psychic adventures get very nearly as much screen time as N.J.’s. She develops a friendship with a girl in an adjacent flat, Li-Li (Adrian Lin). Li-Li lives with a youngish mother who is still dating and brings her men home. Li-Li is involved with a boy named Fatty (Pang Chang Tu), who works out and is muscular but certainly not obese. Fatty is a bit moody, morose, and undependable. When Li-Li and Fatty feud, Ting-Ting gets stuck being a conduit for Fatty’s letters to Li-Li. Later, however, the somewhat promiscuous Li-Li moves on to another guy and Fatty’s next letter is for Ting-Ting herself, rather than her friend Li-Li. Fatty and Ting-Ting go to a movie together and walk about Taipei, just as N.J. and Sherry are similarly walking about Tokyo. Father and daughter are both (re)experiencing first love at the same moment. Ting-Ting and Fatty end up at a hotel together, with Ting-Ting apparently ready to give up her virginity to him, but the awkwardness of the moment is so palpable that Fatty runs out, saying, “This is not right.” Later, Ting-Ting encounters Fatty who is apparently back to waiting for Li-Li, who he has not truly gotten over. Ting-Ting tries to reassure Fatty that they can still be friends but Fatty angrily rejects her, disparaging what he describes as her phony, meaningless happiness. Ting-Ting runs off to her room feeling used and abused, not considering what might be going on in his life to cause such an outburst. Soon, we see Ting-Ting at the police station, obviously having been called in for questioning about an incident involving her acquaintances. Fatty has murdered Li-Li’s new lover. Adding to the tabloid quality of the murder is that Li-Li’s new lover was also her mother’s lover and her English teacher! More love triangles!

The eight year-old Yang-Yang gets thread time as well. He provides double-duty, simultaneously furnishing the adorable childhood sentimentality and the most overt philosophical perspectives of the film. The precocious Yang-Yang is absorbed with such fundamental epistemological questions as perspective. He wonders to his father, since I can’t see what you see, “Can we only know half the truth?” He is also concerned that he “can only see in front not behind.” Yang-Yang’s first issue – seeing from another person’s perspective – is an explicit statement of the issue that is implicit throughout this film. None of the characters portrayed in this film have much capacity for seeing things from anyone else’s perspective. All are self-absorbed and egocentric. N.J. is baffled by Yang-Yang’s questions but has the presence of mind to offer to buy the kid a camera so that he can record what other people can’t see. Later, N.J. discovers a roll of film taken by Yang-Yang consisting entirely of the backs of people’s heads so as to help them see what they normally don’t! Yang-Yang also experiments with various ways of “getting back” at the girls who torment him. He attempts to drop a water balloon on his chief tormentor but hits one of the meanest teachers instead. Later, his perspective in relation to his tormentor begins to change when he sees a flash of her underpants and her silhouette against a screening of the primordial beginnings of life. Miraculously, his interest in her suddenly takes a new turn. He stops by the swimming pool where she is working out. He is dressed in utterly nerdish regalia complete with a flag but watches her surreptitiously, especially her breathing. Later, he practices sticking his head underwater in the sink of the bathroom at home.

Grandmother finally succumbs and the funeral is duly arranged. A-Di demands that no expense be spared for his mother (though he had little time for her and gave her little comfort while she was alive). Min-Min, back from her retreat, wails at her mother’s coffin, “Why did you leave us? A-Di and I can’t go on without you.” Once again, she is absorbed in her own needs. It is left to Yang-Yang to put things in perspective. With N.J. and Ting-Ting looking on from the rear of the temple, Yang-Yang offers philosophical perspective. He explains, first, why he had been unable to talk to her while she was in a coma: “You always told me ‘Listen!’” You knew everything and I knew nothing. Now, I don’t even know where you’ve gone but someday I’ll visit you there. In the back of the room, N.J. silently takes Ting-Ting’s hand, perhaps realizing how little he knows his children.

Themes: The name of the film, “Yi Yi” is Chinese for “One One.” This is a film about individuality carried to the excess of inability to connect with others, resulting in aloneness and feelings of loneliness. Yang suggests that part of the problem of these folks is related to the alienating effect of modern high-paced life. The traffic swirls about in the big city, fast-paced computer games are all the rage, and violence dominates in the movies, games, and news. The recurrent camera technique of shots from outside of windows adds to the sense of alienation both by separating viewers from the characters and because the windows reflect the incessant activity of the city streets. At the same time, Yang acknowledges that part of the disconnectedness of these characters derives from their own psychology and a lack of philosophical or religious grounding. All of the members of the Jian family are looking for help in understanding the world in which they live – whether from a Buddhist Master, a business guru, friends, or parents. None are getting much of the help that they seek, except what N.J. gets from Mr. Ota. None of these characters are able to talk deeply with one another and offer meaningful emotional or intellectual support for each other except in two instances. Near the end, N.J. tunes into his wife’s distress enough to say to her that he had the chance to reconsider the choices he had made and would not change those choices. Although falling short of a declaration of love for her, he at least reassured her that he was satisfied to be with her. Then, in the ultimate role reversal, it is little Yang-Yang that gives his family some perspective on the importance of love and communication in his final soliloquy.

When Yi Yi was targeted for marketing in America, Yang suggested the alternative title “A One and a Two” as in a conductor’s opening to a musical performance. Music is integral to this film, both actually and metaphorically. Lilli is a cello player and we see her giving a concert, with just a piano for accompaniment, on a stage in front of a large audience, with Ting-Ting and Fatty in attendance and the latter in rapt attention. Ting-Ting plays Gershwin on the piano. Metaphorically, all of the characters in this film are soloists, ineffective in their duets (relationships), involved disastrously in trios (romantic triangles), and largely incapable of performing in an orchestra (society). The members of the Jian family are rarely even photographed together. Each is on his or her own with little familial support. Even the wedding photographs are stiff and awkward.

One main reason that these characters can’t relate effectively with one another is the issue raised explicitly by Yang-Yang: inability to relate to each other’s perspective and concerns. These are people so adrift in their own angst that they have no real capacity to care about another’s grief or problems and offer help. Sherry loves N.J., but only in relation to her own needs and desires. Min-Min cares about her mother, but only in relation to what her mother provides to her, not what she can give to her mother, even in her hour of death. Ting-Ting begins to care about Fatty, but responds to his emotional plight only in relation to how it impacted herself. Even the grandmother demanded that Yang-Yang listen to her rather than listening to him. A-Di’s wife demands of A-Di, when his ex-girlfriend shows up with friends at the baby shower, “How could you do this to me?” That is the question that all of these characters, in their unrelenting egocentricity, are continuously asking. When Min-Min returns from the Buddhist retreat when her mother dies, N.J. reassures her “The kids are both fine.” They aren’t, but neither he nor his wife would have any way of knowing since neither tunes into where their children are, psychologically or even physically. The fault for this family’s lack of genuine familial bonds lies, of course, with the two parents. It is up to the parents to create a family environment that fosters mutual caring.

Then, in both N.J. and Min-Min, there is a kind of implicit midlife crisis at work. He wonders about the lack of ethics of his business. When one of his partners claims that he’s happy with his work, N.J. retorts, “When you don’t love what you do, how could you be?” Min-Min has a similar crisis about the meaningfulness of her daily routine. On a larger scope, these personal midlife crises could be viewed as a stand-in for the economic midlife crisis of the countries on the western Pacific rim. After a period of rapid growth and Westernization, the subsequent economic stagnation has left people in several Asian countries wondering whether the increased commerce justifies the damage done to traditional family structure and lifestyles.

Production Values: The script for this film is superlative, especially because it had every potential of devolving into the most heinous kind of soap opera. That it comes across more like Balzac than “As the World Turns” is to Yang’s infinite credit. The characters are as developed as they logically can be, considering that the principal issue is the lack of development of capacity for real empathy for others in these individuals. Yang avoids cheap melodrama and limits the plot twists to the one tabloid-quality development involving Fatty. The script is witty and original, poetic and sometimes crude, serious yet comedic.

The pacing of this film and the camera perspective have to be the two most controversial aspects. I agree with those critics that argue that it is paced exactly as it needs to be to create the aura of a leisurely examination of the lives of these people as they really occur. This is a film attuned to the rhythms of life, not to those of television. The camera perspective is what is typical of Asian cinema that most differentiates it from Hollywood style. There are very few close-ups. Instead, Yi Yi features medium and long shots that emphasize distance and alienation and which encourage the viewer to assume an objective perspective, rather than being caught up emotionally with one particular character. Since American viewers are brought up on Hollywood films, the conventions of Hollywood filmmakers tend to become what we expect and view as “right.” American viewers adapted to MTV and videogames may have difficulty adjusting to a film like Yi Yi. More’s the pity.

The cinematography is of equal or perhaps greater merit than even the fine script. Yang’s awareness of color is exceptional. There’s one shot in which the room in the foreground is in shadows with blue light streaming in through a window to the right and orange light from a door in the back center. The shot of the young girl who torments Yang-Yang silhouetted against a film clip of the primordial earth is magnificent. At one transition, Yang features clouds crossing the sky for perhaps ten seconds. Yang also includes a delightful example of montage editing, cutting back and forth between a pair of lovers in Tokyo (N.J. and Sherry) and another pair in Taipei (Ting-Ting and Fatty), highlighting the parallels in the developing feelings. There’s subtle use of symbolism, such as a plant that represents Ting-Ting’s blossoming womanhood and Yang-Yang’s camera which becomes emblematic of both the concept of perspective and the art of cinema. One could easily imagine Yang-Yang growing up to become a film director. Yi Yi also has a very appealing soundtrack.

The performances are all quite good despite Yang’s choice of mostly first-time performers. Nien-Jen Wu, who played N.J., had previously appeared in Daughter of the Nile (1987). Ken Ogata was superb as Mr. Ota. His work also includes The Ballad of Narayama (1983), Mishima (1985), and The Pillow Book (1996). Kelly Lee was very appealing as Ting-Ting and Jonathan Chang adorable as Yang-Yang.

Bottom-Line: This is a marvelous little film, not about family life per se, but about individuals struggling without real family support. One and another one where there should be two. The cinematography is gorgeous and the script is very well constructed. Some American viewers will find the film too slow or too distant in camera perspective, but I urge such viewers to learn to broaden their notions about what is required of good cinema. Hollywood style is one thing and international cinema quite another (more precisely, several others). Yi Yi is mostly in Mandarin with English subtitles and has a running time of 173 minutes.


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You might want to check out these other excellent films from China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan:

Chungking Express
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
Eat Drink Man Woman
The Emperor and the Assassin
Fallen Angels
Farewell My Concubine
Hero
In the Mood for Love
Raise the Red Lantern
Red Sorghum
Road Home
Shanghai Triad
The Story of Qiu Ju
Temptress Moon
Together
To Live
What Time is it There?
The Women From the Lake of Scented Souls

Recommended:
Yes

Video Occasion: Good Date Movie
Suitability For Children: Suitable for Children Age 13 and Older