Yi Yi

Theatrical Release Date: 2000 10 06 (USA - Limited)

UPC: 715515018623

Studio: Criterion

Summary: Master Taiwanese director Edward Yang spins this intricate and complex yarn about life's everyday crises. The film focuses on N.J. Jian (Wu Nien-Jen, a noted writer/director in his own right); his wife, Min-Min (Elaine Jin); and their two children, teenager Ting-Ting (Kelly Lee) and young Yang-Yang (Jonathan Chang). Their middle-class existence seems stable and secure until a series of incidents throws all of their lives out of kilter. The misfortunes start at the wedding of Min-Min's ne'er-do-well brother, Ah-Di (Chen Xisheng), when his jilted ex-girlfriend Yun-Yun (Tseng Hsin-yi) bursts into the proceedings and lambastes the bride. Upset by the ruckus and feeling unwell, Min-Min's mother goes home early only to suffer a stroke and slip into a coma. After the wedding, N.J. runs into his first love, Sherry (Ke Suyun), who is married to a rich American. This chance encounter shakes N.J. to his very foundations, forcing him to reevaluate his life. At the same time, N.J.'s computer company deliberates on whether or not to collaborate with a renowned Japanese games designer, Ota (Issey Ogata), sending N.J. to Japan to negotiate a contract. Confronted by her mother's coma, Min-Min also takes stock of her life and finds it lacking. On the brink of a nervous breakdown, she suddenly joins a religious retreat. In Japan, N.J. warms to his potential business partner Ota, spending long evenings discussing life and love in hip Tokyo jazz clubs. There, N.J. also meets up with Sherry; they relive old memories and flirt with infidelity. At the same, Ting-Ting, who quietly blames herself for her grandmother's coma, learns her first hard lessons about love, while Yang-Yang causes trouble at school and wrestles with the truths of the adult world. This film won the Golden Palm for Best Direction at the 2000 Cannes Film Festival and was an official selection for the 2000 Toronto Film Festival. ~ Jonathan Crow, Rovi

Category: Drama

Awards: Best Picture – National Society of Film Critics Best Foreign Film – French Academy of Cinema Best Foreign Language Film – Los Angeles Film Critics Association Best Director – Cannes Film Festival Best Foreign Film – New York Film Critics Circle Film Presented – Telluride Film Festival Film Presented – Tokyo International Film Festival

Features: New, restored high-definition digital transfer
Audio commentary by writer-director Edward Yang and noted Asian-cinema critic Tony Rayns
New video interview with Rayns about Yang and the New Taiwan Cinema movement
Original English subtitle translation by Yang and Rayns
U.S. theatrical trailer
A new essay by Kent Jones and notes from the director

Yi Yi

Format: Digital Video Disc (DVD)

Release Date: 07/11/2006

Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1 Theatre Wide-Screen

Audio: DD2 Dolby Digital Stereo

Runtime: 173 Minutes

Sides: 1

Number of Discs: 1

Subtitles: English

Region: USA & territories, Canada

Chapters: Disc #1 -- Yi Yi
1. Double Happiness [3:46]
2. The Jians [4:10]
3. Luckiest Day [7:48]
4. Family Emergency [3:55]
5. Old Man [2:58]
6. Honest Talk [6:33]
7. Harsh Realities [8:57]
8. Growth Potential [4:59]
9. Man Trouble [5:19]
10. First Time [9:19]
11. Every Day [3:27]
12. Half-Truths [10:17]
13. Art Appreciation [2:46]
14. Missed Signals [5:28]
15. Cleaned Out [3:44]
16. New Beginnings [7:13]
17. Precious Harmony [4:39]
18. Lucky Guy [5:44]
19. Serious Interest [3:23]
20. "His Music" [2:23]
21. Finding Ways [8:35]
22. Getting Ready [4:21]
23. "Only You" [5:42]
24. Two Keys [9:08]
25. No Tricks [7:32]
26. Back Home [4:13]
27. In Alignment [4:13]
28. "So Unfair" [4:08]
29. Peaceful Appearance [7:46]
30. Same Things [2:49]
31. Already Known [7:36]
1. First Gathering [3:46]
2. Crucial Moment [4:10]
3. Taipei Phenomenon [7:48]
4. Dramatic Device [3:55]
5. Dawning Awareness [2:58]
6. Only Seven [6:33]
7. Terrible Guilt [8:57]
8. Subtitling Ota [4:59]
9. Creating Personality [5:19]
10. Speaking English [9:19]
11. Remarkable Performance [3:27]
12. Red Light [10:17]
13. Very Chinese [2:46]
14. Leaving Marks [5:28]
15. Cultural Difference [3:44]
16. Two Approaches [7:13]
17. Spontaneous Performances [4:39]
18. Another Side [5:44]
19. Political Satire [3:23]
20. Amazing Similarities [2:23]
21. Reflective Art [8:35]
22. Story Foundation [4:21]
23. Location Shooting [5:42]
24. Visual Style [9:08]
25. Talented Actors [7:32]
26. Doing Business [4:13]
27. Explaining Superstitions [4:13]
28. Taiwan News [4:08]
29. Final Reconciliation [7:46]
30. Emotional Resilience [2:49]
31. Positive Ending [7:36]
1. Complex History [2:37]
2. No Audience [1:07]
3. New Directors [2:01]
4. Looking Backward [1:26]
5. Rethinking Style [3:18]
6. Taiwan Now [1:08]
7. Intellectual Approach [2:36]
8. No Industry [:36]

Jonathan Crow

As exhibited by his sprawling 1991 masterpiece, A Brighter Summer Day, Edward Yang can combine a poet's eye for metaphor and imagery with a novelist's sense of detail and character. Yi Yi is a domestic drama that has the sweep of an epic and the fine acuity of a haiku. Yang's story unfolds effortlessly, populated with disquieting coincidences and sudden reversals, capturing the ebb and flow of real life. Yet Yi Yi's complex narrative seamlessly creates unexpected parallels between characters that simply could not exist in a standard linear narrative. In one sequence, Yang cuts between Ting-Ting's tentative steps toward romance with a classmate and N.J.'s guilt-wracked rendezvous with his first love Sherry. Whereas A Brighter Summer Day largely concerned itself with the lives of Taiwan's disaffected youth, this film speaks most eloquently about the difficulties of middle age. The most overtly existential of Yang's work, the film shows how N.J.'s bourgeois sense of stability can be utterly overturned by a single chance encounter, creating one of the richest portraits of a midlife crisis ever to be committed to celluloid. The underlying themes of change and uncertainty tap directly into Taiwan's overall national psyche during the late '90s -- a period marked by a go-go economy that went south after the Asian financial crisis of 1997 and an increasingly tenuous political existence thanks to mainland China's public chest-beating. As the rumpled patriarch N.J., Wu Nian-Jen delivers a finely wrought performance, as does the ever-talented Elaine Jin, who plays Min-Min. Funny, sometimes shocking, and always poignant, Yi Yi is a masterpiece by one of the towering figures of world cinema. ~ Jonathan Crow, Rovi

Cast and Crew: Issey Ogata  Actor 
Nianzhen Wu  Actor 
Edward Yang  Director 
Edward Yang  Screenwriter 
Shinya Kawai  Producer 
Kaili Peng  Composer (Music Score) 
Naoko Tsukeda  Producer 
Wu Nien-Chen  Actor 
Kelly Lee  Actor 
Elaine Jin  Actor 
Chen Xisheng  Actor 
Jonathan Chang  Actor 
Tang Ru-yun  Actor 
Hsu Shu Yuan  Actor 

Country: Japan,Taiwan