Yi Yi

The Jian family, father NJ, mother Min-Min, daughter Ting-Ting and son Yang-Yang, is a middle-class family residing in Taipei. The film begins with the wedding of Min-Min's brother A-Di. At the wedding reception, held at Grand Hotel, NJ runs into Sherry, his ex-girlfriend, who gives him her number before leaving. After the reception, Min-Min's mother, who lives with the family, suffers a stroke that leaves her comatose. She is put on life support and the doctor urges the Jians to talk to her on a daily basis.

NJ is dissatisfied with his job and his company is struggling financially. The company is attempting to secure a Japanese client, Mr. Ota, and NJ's colleagues asks him to take Ota out for dinner, to which he reluctantly agrees. However, the two men would form a bond over dinner and NJ later takes Ota to a bar where he sings and plays the piano. That night, NJ phones and leaves a message for Sherry, apologizing for leaving her abruptly 30 years ago. Meanwhile, Min-Min becomes depressed upon seeing her mother's condition and feels that her life is "so little"; she eventually leaves for a remote Buddhist retreat.

The newly married A-Di is experiencing financial troubles and creates a strain with his pregnant wife. After suffering losses from a failed investment, A-Di is kicked out of the house, and reaches out to his ex-girlfriend Yun-Yun for help. A-Di is allowed back upon the birth of his child, but a fight breaks out at the baby shower when Yun-Yun shows up uninvited. A-Di and his wife would reconcile after she discovers him passed out due to a gas leak at their house.

Ting-Ting feels guilty as her grandma collapsed when she was taking out the trash Ting-Ting was supposed to take out. She befriends her new neighbor, Lili, whose mother frequently hosts different men at their place. After Lili breaks off with her boyfriend, Fatty, he begins to relay letters for Lili to Ting-Ting. However, Fatty soon becomes attracted to Ting-Ting and asks her out on a date. After their second date, the two checks into a hotel room but they both hesitate and Fatty leaves. Later, Ting-Ting sees Lili back together with Fatty and is later berated by Fatty himself. Ting-Ting becomes depressed and talks to her comatose grandma, asking her to wake up. She learns the next day that Fatty has been arrested for killing Lili's teacher, who was in a relationship with Lili's mother. Upon returning home, Ting-Ting dreams of being comforted by her grandma.

Yang-Yang is frequently picked on at school by his teacher and female classmates. To cope, he develops an interest in photography and starts to take pictures, mostly of other people's backs, as he wants to help them see it for themselves. Later, after seeing a girl whom he has a crush on swimming, Yang-Yang began to teach himself how to swim, eventually succeeding after jumping into the pool at his school.

NJ is sent by his company to Tokyo to continue talks with Ota. He learns that Sherry will also be in Japan as well, and arrange for the two to meet up. The two reunite and recount their pasts; Sherry remains affected by NJ's abrupt departure and NJ attempts to clear the air. The two travel to another city and check into another hotel, but after NJ insists on separate rooms, Sherry berates NJ and breaks down; he comforts her in response. The two returns to Tokyo and checks back into their respective rooms; before leaving, NJ tells Sherry that he "has never loved anyone else". The next day, NJ is informed by his colleague that they have secured a deal with another client and urges him to return to Taipei immediately. In response, NJ berates his colleague for wanting to abandon Ota abruptly and without dignity. Later, NJ goes to check on Sherry's room, but learns that she has already checked out.

Upon her mother's death, Min-Min returns home and is reunited with her family. At the funeral, NJ's colleague urges him to come back to work but he refuses. Yang-Yang recites a poem he wrote for his grandma in front of her shrine. In the poem, Yang-Yang recounts about the time spent with his grandma, his hope of finding where she went, and a desire to "tell people what they don't know, show them stuff they haven't seen." He concludes his poem by saying how his newborn cousin reminds him of her always saying she's old, as he always wanted to say along with her that "I am old too."

• Wu Nien-jen as NJ
• Elaine Jin as Min-Min
• Kelly Lee as Ting-Ting
• Jonathan Chang as Yang-Yang
• Issey Ogata as Mr. Ota
• Chen Hsi-Sheng as A-Di
• Su-Yun Ko as Sherry
• Chang Yu Pang as Fatty

Yi Yi's filming began on April 8, 1999, and lasted until August 21, 1999. Before this, Yang's script had required the children to be ages ten and fifteen, but Yang later found Jonathan Chang and Kelly Lee (who had never acted before). When filming began, they were eight and thirteen years. Yang made amendments to the script accordingly.

Following its debut at the 2000 Cannes Film Festival, Yi Yi has collected a host of awards from prestigious international festivals. Yi Yi garnered director Edward Yang the Best Director at Cannes in 2000 and was nominated for the Palme d'Or in the same year. Yi Yi also won the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival's Netpac Award ("For the perceptive and sensitive portrayal of a generation and cultural gap in Taiwan and the painful choices to be made in these difficult times."), the Vancouver International Film Festival's Chief Dan George Humanitarian Award and tied with Topsy-Turvy to win the 2000 Sarajevo Film Festival's Panorama Jury Award.

It won Best Foreign Film from the French Syndicate of Cinema Critics in 2001, the Grand Prix at the Fribourg International Film Festival in Switzerland in 2001, The Best Foreign Film from the Los Angeles Film Critics Association Awards in 2000, Best Film from the National Society of Film Critics in 2001 (where Yang also won 2nd place for a Best Director Award), and Best Foreign Language Film from the New York Film Critics Circle Awards in 2000. The film was nominated for the prestigious Grand Prix of the Belgian Syndicate of Cinema Critics. The film also won a "Best Film - China/Taiwan" award and "Best Director" award from the 2002 Chinese Film Media Awards, a "Best Film" award at the 2001 Chinese Film Media Awards. It was named one of the best movies of 2001 by many prominent publications and intellectuals, including The New York Times, Newsweek, USA Today, the Village Voice, Film Comment, the Chicago Reader, and the author Susan Sontag, among others. Specifically, Yi Yi was named "Best Film of the Year" (2000) by the following film critics and writers: A. O. Scott of The New York Times, Susan Sontag writing for Artforum, Michael Atkinson of the Village Voice, Steven Rosen of The Denver Post, John Anderson, Jan Stuart and Gene Seymour writing for Newsday, and Stephen Garrett as well as Nicole Keeter of Time Out New York.

The film also won 2nd place for Best Director, Best Film and Best Foreign Language Film in the 2000 Boston Society of Film Critics Awards, and was also nominated for: a Best Foreign Language Film award from the Awards Circuit Community Awards, a Best Non-American Film award from the 2003 Bodil Awards, a Best Foreign Language Film award from the 2001 Chicago Film Critics Association Awards, the Best Cast, a Best Foreign Film award from the 2001 Cesar Awards, a Screen International Award from the 2000 European Film Awards, a Best Asian Film award from the 2002 Hong Kong Film Awards, a Best Foreign Language Film award from the Online Film & Television Association, a Best Foreign Language Film award from the 2001 Online Film Critics Society Awards, and a Golden Spike award from the 2000 Valladolid International Film Festival.

In 2002, Yi Yi was selected by the British film magazine Sight & Sound as one of the ten greatest films of the past 25 years.

Yi Yi also placed third in a 2009 Village Voice Film Poll ranking "The Best Film of the Decade", tying with La Commune (Paris, 1871) (2000) and Zodiac (2007), and also placed third in a 2009 IndieWire Critics' Poll of the "Best Film of the Decade". The film was summarized by film critic Nigel Andrews, who stated in the Financial Times that "[t]o describe [Yi Yi] as a three-hour Taiwanese family drama is like calling Citizen Kane a film about a newspaper."[7]

Aggregation site They Shoot Pictures, Don't They has named it as the third most acclaimed film of the 21st century among critics.[4] It also received 20 total votes in the 2012 Sight & Sound polls,[8] and was ranked the eighth greatest film of the 21st century in a 2016 BBC poll.[5] In 2019, The Guardian ranked Yi Yi 26th in its 100 Best Films of the 21st Century list.[9]

The film is available on The Criterion Collection and features a newly restored digital transfer along with a DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack (on the Blu-ray), audio commentary from Yang and Asian film critic Tony Rayns.[10]

The piano pieces in Yi Yi's soundtrack are mostly performed by Kaili Peng, Yang's wife. They include well-known pieces like Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata and J. S. Bach's Toccata in E minor (BWV 914). Peng has a small cameo in the film as a concert cellist, playing Beethoven's Cello sonata No. 1 with her husband posing as a pianist.

• Yi Yi at IMDb
• Yi Yi at AllMovie
• Yi Yi at Metacritic
• Yi Yi at Rotten Tomatoes
• Yi Yi at Box Office Mojo
• Yi Yi: Time and Space an essay by Kent Jones at the Criterion Collection