Official Site which has some bugs.
**** of ****
Rated: call it a PG-13
Origin: Taiwan
Length: 173 minutes
Writer & Director: Edward Yang
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Official Synopsis:
NJ Jian, his wife, Min-Min, and their two kids are a typical middle-class family, sharing their Taipei apartment with Min-Min’s elderly mother. Now in his mid-forties, NJ is a partner in a computer hardware firm which made big profits last year but which will soon go bankrupt if it doesn’t change direction. NJ warms to the idea of teaming up with Ota, an innovative designer of games software in Japan, and enjoys spending time with the charming and urbane Japanese man. Things start to go wrong for the Jians on the day that Min-Min’s brother A-Di gets married. That’s the day when Min-Min’s mother suffers a stroke and is rushed to hospital in a coma from which she may never awaken. It’s also the day when NJ bumps into Sherry, his first childhood sweetheart, a woman (now married to an American) he hasn’t seen for twenty years. In the following weeks, Min-Min will go through a minor breakdown and disappear to a religious retreat, her daughter Ting-Ting will get her first, rough lessons in love, her son Yang-Yang will get into trouble at school and her brother A-Di will have to deal with a clash between the bride he chose and the woman he spurned. There will be an ugly murder in the apartment block where the Jians live, a young man will give in to his sense that life is inherently unfair and cruel, and commit a crime which will ruin his own life. Meanwhile NJ will go to Tokyo to negotiate with Ota, but also to secretly meet Sherry and find out if life really can give him a second chance.
Quick Review:
This long, complicated, and absorbing film will only have American screenings in some art houses and colleges. Clearly there is a theme of choices, second chances, and acceptance. The depth is achieved successfully by telling several stories of the same theme through the differing perspectives of several members of the same family. the examination of the meaning of life in daily microcosms works because we can relate to every character and their dilemma in some way. The Taïpei scenery connects the audience with the closeness of life which is enhanced by opening with a wedding, and closing with a funeral. The bad decisions made by others will always effect individuals, but each person must keep progressing in life. The use of the Japanese games designer, Ota, is effective as a covert narrator musing through the key meanings of the plot.
There is an error in the subtitles where the '20' year gap is written as '30' years.
from the writer & director, Edward Yang:
"I think what I’m getting at in this film is the fact that it makes no real difference whether you’re young or old: everyone copes with life as it comes, no matter what their age. The process doesn’t change. Everyone asks themselves if what they have is all there is, and wonders if they could have a second chance. ... The characters in this film arose from things I think about a lot. If we look for ways to reassess our own lives, then the concept of innovation becomes central: what haven’t we done?"