Review, Summary, Analysis: Yi Yi (2000) — Ashley Hajimirsadeghi (2024)

I’ve heard so much about Yi Yi and have been wanting to watch Edward Yang’s movies for the longest time. But I was being really cheap and didn’t feel like buying a Criterion subscription, so thus I suffered silently (true first world problem right here) until the day that I could afford to actually go and buy myself a subscription. And so, in October 2021, I was granted a free trial of Criterion with my new iPad and Apple account, so Yi Yi ended up being one of the first movies that I watched. I will confirm that it was very much worth the wait, I absolutely loved it (spoiler).

Well, since I’m going to gush about this film now and what it’s about, let’s get this review started.

Edward Yang’s final film seems mundane on the surface, but offers so much richness and lush visuals that we can’t help but to be transfixed.

Director Edward Yang won the Best Director Award at the Cannes Film Festival for Yi Yi, which was his last film before his death in 2007 of cancer. He was only fifty-seven when he died. But Yi Yi is a magnificent piece of art, something that cannot just be explained on this page and review. Dear viewer, if you have somehow not watched the movie yet and have stumbled onto this website, you must find yourself a copy of Yi Yi in order to savor and cherish it.

We begin with a marriage. The mother of the family we’re following in this film, Min-Min, has a brother who is getting married. It is at this wedding that the father, NJ, runs into one of his old flames who is now married to an American. Naturally, in a true wink-wink fashion, she gives him her phone number. But while there is a marriage to celebrate, something else major happens almost immediately happens: Min-Min’s mother has a stroke and is rendered comatose.

This is when we then zone out of this intimate family portrait and discover what makes people so uniquely miserable NJ hates his job and is reminiscing on his life’s regrets, particularly where he left his old flame suddenly and without a reason. He is romanticizing the past in order to escape his miserable present, which, if you’ve done this before, you know that this is a major mistake. Don’t go running back to people just because you’re lonely and sad. That’s always a mistake.

We then pivot to the children, Ting-Ting and Yang-Yang. Ting-Ting feels guilty because she was taking out the trash when her grandmother collapsed, but then Ting-Ting manages to interweave herself into a strange love triangle between her neighbor, her neighbor’s boyfriend, and the sexual politics of being a youth.

Meanwhile her brother Yang-Yang is being bullied at school and, in order to keep himself going, he teaches himself how to swim—I found that to be an excellent metaphor for survival. To keep going, to keep swimming, you must learn how to kick and move forward.

All as these messes are happening, the family visits the comatose grandmother and talks to her, just as the doctors have said to do. Each of the characters feels this distinct kind of emptiness in their lives and is trying to fill it somehow. For NJ, it’s the love he lost thirty years ago when he walked away and the fact he doesn’t have the life he always dreamed of.

For Ting-Ting, she just wants her grandmother back. Yang-Yang wants to find the way of moving through life, taking photographs of the backs of people’s heads, in order help people see themselves. He then takes up swimming in order to find a way through life. Then, as the final connector to the problem in this family, the mother, Min-Min, is having a major existentialist crisis. The mother gets the least amount of attention in this movie, but I would’ve been really interested to see more of her story and how she’s viewing the stories of her children and husband.

These stories are woven so tightly, bound together by an image repeated, and, like many of Yang’s other films, the environment plays a key part in how the story unfolds. If you’re into how cities play a role in cinema, then this movie will be a delectable treat for you—we see both Taipei and Tokyo in this movie, allowing NJ and our characters to move through space and time and continue this little loop of nostalgia and regret. And while the loop begins with a wedding, it ends with a death—a classic symbol in the concept of union and death.

Overall Thoughts

Watch it. It’s a stunning movie that will give you a lot to think about after. This was not my first Yang movie (I’ve previously watched A Brighter Summer Day), so I knew what to expect when it came to cinematography and his unique style and approach when it comes to cinema. This isn’t a film that you’re going to watch once and be done with it. I think I definitely will be dwelling on it and its story for a long time, chewing on what it means and reflects with my own life, and returning to rewatch the movie again and again. It’s totally worth it; it’s too much of a timeless film, despite it very clearly being filmed in the late nineties.

Rating: 5/5

Review, Summary, Analysis: Yi Yi (2000) — Ashley Hajimirsadeghi (2024)

FAQs

What is the message of Yi Yi? ›

Yi Yi is about beginnings and endings (most films are really) - after a joyful marriage ceremony, a newlywed couple struggle with difficult arguments and a suicide attempt, rekindling their care for each other, vouching they should do better; a teenage relationship breaks up for another one to arise, leading to another ...

What is the film Yi Yi about? ›

Who is the protagonist of Yi Yi? ›

It centers on the struggles of an engineer, NJ (played by Wu Nien-jen), and three generations of his middle-class Taiwanese family in Taipei. The film's title means "one by one", or "one after another".

What makes yi yi so good? ›

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 ...

What is the concept of Yi? ›

Yi translated as 'righteousness' means right or correct action coming out of the benevolent heart. The righteous person does not premeditate how good or righteous s/he is; s/he speaks the right word or acts in the right manner because the heart is in the right place.

What does "yiyi" mean in English? ›

yī yī to regret leaving reluctant to part (onom.)

How old is Yang Yang in Yi Yi? ›

One of my favorite depictions of a child in all of cinema is an 8-year-old named Yang Yang in writer-director Edward Yang's 2000 masterpiece, “Yi Yi.” Played by the adorable Jonathan Chang, the little boy wanders the periphery of the picture, never fully understanding why the grown-ups around him are so happy or sad, ...

What does "i yi yi" mean? ›

What is the underlying meaning behind saying “aye yi yi”, and where did this expression come from? It is an expression of exasperation - Oh no! or Enough! Popularized by the song below and in I Love Lucy. Cielito Lindo is a traditional Mexican song written by Quirino Mendoza y Cortes in 1882.

What is Yi also known as? ›

…and greatest dialectal differentiation is Yi (also called Nosu or Northern Lolo), with some five million speakers in the Chinese provinces of Sichuan, Yunnan, and Guangxi and a syllabic writing system of considerable antiquity.

What country is Yi Yi from? ›

Synopsis Set in Taiwan, the film follows the lives of the Jian family from the alternating perspectives of the three main family members: father N.J. (Nien-Jen Wu), teenage daughter Ting-Ting (Elaine Jin) and young son Yang-Yang (Issei Ogata).

Who is the voice of Yi? ›

Chloe Bennet voices Yi, the lead character in Abominable.

Review: Yi Yi: A One and a Two… (2000) — 3 ...3 Brothers Filmhttps://3brothersfilm.com ›

The late Edward Yang's final film, Yi Yi: A One and a Two…, is often considered his most accessible work: not quite as esoteric as The Terrorizers (1986), d...
Directed and written by Edward Yang, Yi Yi is a Taiwanese drama that centers on three members of the Jian family. The middle-aged father, NJ, tries to curry fav...
Near the end of Edward Yang's unjustly maligned 1996 film Mahjong, a teenage boy is humiliated by a group of older women, and he starts to cry. Yang quietly...

What does Yi Yi Yi mean? ›

The expression "aye yi yi" is a phrase often used to convey a sense of exasperation, frustration, or surprise. It is typically used as an interjection to express a range of emotions, including dismay, disbelief, or even amusement, depending on the context and tone of the speaker.

What is the true story of Dong Yi? ›

A historical drama based on the life of Dong Yi later known as Choi Suk Bin. She worked in the royal palace as a lowly water maid. King Sok Jong then selected Choi as his concubine. Choi would then give birth to Yeong Jo, the second son of King Sok Jong and the future king of Joseon.

What is the meaning of Yi Fan Feng Shun? ›

Other blessings, such as “吉祥如意” (Ji Xiang Ru Yi), “心想事成” (Xin Xiang Shi Cheng), “一帆风顺” ( Yi Fan Feng Shun), etc., all mean “ wish you good luck and everything will go smoothly as you wish.” These good wishes basically convey the same idea, however take different ways to express, often used as greetings for people to ...

What is the story of Liu Yi? ›

It is about a young man named Liu Yi who, out of sympathy, agrees to deliver a letter from a distressed dragon to her father, the Dragon King of Lake Dongting; following her rescue and the death of her abusive husband, the Dragon Girl transforms into a beautiful woman and marries Liu Yi.

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