Film Review #182: Yi Yi
Film Review #182: YI YI
If there was one Taiwanese film that perfectly captured the essence of people just getting through life, Yi Yi would be it. Edward Yang’s final film released in 2000 captures the familial strife that repeats itself across generations. Staying true to his signature, Yi Yi is a family drama that balances witty humour with equal moments of hard hitting emotional scenes.
The film opens with a wedding, and as we see a banner 喜喜 (double happiness) being raised as a decoration, Yang Yang stands about watching, a little lost but also curious. His naivete and innocence is a stark contrast to everyone else - adults who have weathered their own storms in love and in life, and have the stories to tell. Yang Yang, whose biggest problem in his young life so far is being bullied by the older girls, munches on a burger in a McDonalds while his father N.J., played by the legendary screenwriter Wu Nien-jen, broods, either ruminating over his company or his first love. Yang draws this stark contrast of young new eyes present in the moment, and his older father, barely present.
Yang’s earlier films such as Taipei Story (1985) or A Brighter Summer Day (1991) touched on how Taiwan was fast becoming an urbanised country with western influence seeping in. Yi Yi however, is more like A Confucian Confusion (1994), which explored the intricacies of human interactions in a fast evolving society. Old flames resurface and disrupt the sense of normalcy that people are used to. Everyone is looking for connections - that spark of emotional intimacy that might fill some void in their lives. Yang has a sense of nostalgia too, in small moments throughout the film. In one scene, two former lovers and a pair on their first date both hold hands when crossing a road, while being in a totally different land, and a generation apart.
When the matriarch of the family falls into a coma, the rest of the family try to rally around her. They each take turns speaking to her, hoping that she’ll hear them and wake up. It almost feels like a confessional at times. Ting-Ting, who is blossoming into a young woman, experiences both the joys of friendship and the heartbreak of a relationship. Her grandma, whom she affectionately calls popo, is her pillar of emotional support when she can’t turn to her parents. When even her parents struggle with coping in their own lives, popo is the person who might be able to dispel all her troubles.
Yi Yi is a timeless story, even though we might be living in a different era, with much more advanced technology and evolving social norms. What films like Yi Yi espouse are very human notions of the social fragmentation that we’ve always struggled with, that have perhaps only gotten worse in today’s modern world. Yang shows that there are always two sides, even if we tend to focus on the chaotic.
Sometimes we all need a little help, even through a picture of the back of our heads, to reveal the good that we can’t see.
Yi Yi will be showing at Oldham Theatre on 26 January 2026.
---------------------
About the author: Ivan Chin is a film critic who hopes to spotlight not only East Asian films, but homegrown films and directors to a larger audience. He has a penchant for films from Hong Kong and Taiwan, but is constantly seeking to expand his film repertoire. He believes that film as an art form is essential to the human condition.
BLOG
