Yi Yi (2000, aka "Yi Yi: A One and a Two...") ½
cast: Wu Nien-jen, Kelly Lee, Jonathan Chang, Issey Ogata, Elaine Jin, Ko Su-yun, Chen Hsi-sheng, Adrain Lin, Tang Ru-yun, and Tseng Hsin-yi
director: Edward Yang

"Yi Yi," according to Taiwanese director Edward Yang, is a character study in which the characters have risen from some of life's daily occurrences. But what happens when our daily occurrences are interrupted? "If we look for ways to reassess our own lives, then the concept of innovation becomes central: what haven’t we done?" Yang explains in an interview.

A personal re-evaluation is what is at the core of "Yi Yi." In the past Yang has focused his films on the adolescent perspective and the adult, but here he figures he has drawn a suitable medium for both mindsets to exist, innovate, and draw certain conclusions.

"Yi Yi" opens on a wedding and ends on a funeral perhaps reminding audiences to cherish the beauty of life and to live beyond daily obstacles and unavoidable heartaches. The wedding concerns the film's other core: the Jian family, a three-generation Taiwanese household spread throughout a local high rise. An ex-lover of the groom who pleads that she should have been the bride on this day interrupts interesting enough the wedding. What is a wedding for some is what seems like a funeral for others.

The central adult character of "Yi Yi" is NJ (Wu), now brother-in-law to the groom who also runs into an old flame by an elevator one day. The two look at each other and NJ wonders aloud if it is really Sherry (his first love). It is. Anxiety forces the pair's need for predictability and small but awkward talk ensues: NJ is an electronics executive with a family...Sherry is now in her homeland on vacation from her husband and American life.

Their relationship ended 30 years ago when NJ stood her up and never returned to her side, but Sherry has never forgotten the pain of being crumpled up and thrown away. She wonders aloud too: why did he stand me up?

Representing the adolescent perspective is Yang-yang (Chang). He's only 8-years-old and has no idea what it feels like to be in love or to be stood up for that matter, but he seems to have adopted a different view on life than most children his age. There are several scenes where Yang-yang is confronted by a miss goody-two-shoes hall monitor (who happens to be the daughter of Yang-yang's overbearing teacher).

What is unique about these encounters is Yang-yang's outlook on life. He takes photos of what he find insightful (the back of his father's head, some mosquitoes). Yang-yang strikes us as being an artistic child in the adult sense because he is and yet he's no stranger to dropping water balloons on people's heads. His nemesis orders people around by the book like an adult even though she's only a child (and her bossy behavior a true reflection of that).

The clothesline of the plot involves one of the Jian's oldest members the elderly mother/mother-in-law/grandmother who suffers a stroke and lies in her bed in a comma. Each member of the family tries to cope with what seems is going to be the mostly likely outcome. Still, they kneel by her side and talk as if she was still conscience and able to listen and respond.

For all of the good measure Edward Yang put into acting, directing, and cinematography, "Yi Yi" ultimately fails in measuring up to any kind of truly meaningful conclusion. I mentioned earlier the film begins on a wedding and ends on a funeral. At both events and several in between "Yi Yi" explores the lives of a rather large family their triumphs, their tragedies, and their hesitations that cause them to ponder if they had done just one thing differently, would the outcome have stayed the same.

I was often reminded of another Taiwanese film, Ang Lee's culinary classic "Eat Drink Man Woman" and its view of everyday existence, the assumptions that come with it, and its superiority of dealing with problems. In "Yi Yi" what seems like the call for real self-examination and personal revelations simply concludes on the note that life will go on rather than supply the audience with something with a little more meat and potatoes (especially for a script that lasts 173 min. on screen).

On that note "Yi Yi" emerges from 2000 as this year's own foreign companion piece to last year's "Magnolia"--a well-orchestrated 3 hour build up to nothing.

"Yi Yi" went on to win the hearts and minds of Western critics who praised the film for its unique look at everyday existence. The National Society of Film Critics named it Best Picture of 2000 and some American critics even lobbied to have Edward Yang's film replace Taiwan's other entry for Best Foreign Film at the Oscars (Ang Lee's equally beloved "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon").