Every beat and every image and every cut and every note feels like a part of a whole. It is a total movie.
Yi Yi (2000)
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted: 74
Fresh: 71
Rotten:3
Average Rating: 8.2/10
Consensus: In its depiction of one family, Yi Yi accurately and expertly captures the themes and details, as well as the beauty, of everyday life.
Runtime: 2 hrs 53 mins
Genre: Foreign Films
Synopsis: Focusing on a typical family--parents, two children, and an elderly grandmother--living in a small apartment in Taipei, YI YI (A ONE AND A TWO) is about the patterns of daily life. It includes a... Focusing on a typical family--parents, two children, and an elderly grandmother--living in a small apartment in Taipei, YI YI (A ONE AND A TWO) is about the patterns of daily life. It includes a wedding, a funeral, a first date, a last date, a birth, and a death. The film follows each member of the Jian family carefully, giving each one equal time, completely developing each character. NJ (Wu Nienjen), the father of the family, struggles with a dead-end job at a technology firm while reexamining his marriage when he meets his high school sweetheart, Sherry (Ke Suyun), after 30 years. NJ's teenage daughter, Ting-Ting (Kelly Lee), has a selfless demeanor and a naive interest in everything, which diffuses the complexity of her high school life. Her little brother, Yang-Yang (Jonathan Chang), is an adorable five-year-old troublemaker who's in love with a pesky girl in his class. And Yang-Yang's mother, Min-Min (Elaine Jin), grieves for her dying mother (Tang Runyun) while coping with her own middle age in a rapidly maturing family. Edward Yang, director of 1991's A BRIGHTER SUMMER DAY, presents a careful, direct, meticulously photographed film with YI YI. Brassy shots of Taipei reflected in the windows of a moving car are offset with slow choreographed sequences using the streetlights to narrate little moral tales. Perhaps the most powerful gem in this film is the magical character of Mr. Ota (Issey Ogata), NJ's Japanese business associate, whose optimistic life perspective will inspire and delight YI YI's viewers. [More]
Starring: Wu Nienjen, Kelly Lee, Jonathan Chang, Issey Ogata
Starring: Wu Nienjen, Kelly Lee, Jonathan Chang, Issey Ogata, Elaine Jin, Ke Suyun, Hsi-Sheng Chen, Shu-shen Hsiao, Shu-Yuan Hsu, Adrian Lin, Michael Tao, Ru-Yun Tang, Hsin-Yi Tseng, Pang Chang Yu
Director: Edward Yang
Director: Edward Yang
Screenwriter: Edward Yang
Producer: Kawai Shinya, Tsukeda Naoko
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Reviews for Yi Yi
The final moments left me thunderstruck, as deeply moved as I've ever been by a film. Yi Yi accumulates moments of truth and insight until it glows with importance.
'With numerous plotlines that move from middle-aged longing and teen romance to cutthroat business, Yang has created a deeply moving examination of a home in turmoil.'
One of the best films of the year, Edward Yang's Yi Yi combines a diagnosis of modern times with seemingly old-fashioned 'literary' storytelling - scene by scene it's slow, character-focused and dense with realistic detail, while the sprawling, coincidenc
This one is a masterpiece, despite being as inexplicable as a great work of music sometimes is.
Yi Yi is a rare work of beauty, a thoughtful, touching, compelling study of humanity that demands to be seen.
There's no question it's a soap opera, but a most charming and involving one.
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