The movie YI YI is lyrical tale about three generations of a middle-class family in modern-day Taipei. It is told with a loving detail and grace that allows each character to be revealed and developed as if in a novel.

We meet the Jian family—father NJ, mother Min-Min, teenage-daughter Ting-Ting and young son Yang-Yang—at the raucous wedding banquet for Min-Min's brother A Di to his very pregnant bride. It is on this same day that NJ meets his first love, Sherry, whom he has not seen in 30 years. It also the day that Min-Min's mother suffers a stroke and lapses into a possibly irreversible coma. From this day, life for the Jian family seems to take a turn. NJ comes to question the ethics of his business partners. Upon examining her life and finding it empty, Min-Min has a mental breakdown and goes away to a spiritual retreat. At the same time Ting-Ting finds herself in her first, awkward romance. Precocious Yang-Yang, full of questions but neglected by everyone, fearlessly seeks answers on his own terms.

There are numerous other characters and subplots, but none is superfluous as the stories are all woven together seamlessly. In one example, Yang deftly intercuts scenes of Ting-Ting's awkward first date with NJ's bittersweet rendezvous with Sherry, masterfully juxtaposing love as it is for different generations. An amazingly detailed look at many lives, and at life in all its phases, from birth to death, YI YI leaves the viewer with a sense of buoyancy and hope at all the possibilities life has to offer.

—Sandhya Shardanand

hybridCinema Ratings Guide:

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