Film Still

Yi Yi

Edward Yang

Taiwan

2000

173 minutes

Color

1.85:1

Mandarin

339

Synopsis

With the runaway international acclaim of this film, Taiwanese director Edward Yang could no longer be called Asian cinema’s best-kept secret. Yi Yi swiftly follows a middle-class family in Taipei over the course of one year, beginning with a wedding and ending with a funeral. Whether chronicling middle-aged father NJ’s tenuous flirtations with an old flame or precocious young son Yang-Yang’s attempts at capturing reality with his beloved camera, Yang imbues every gorgeous frame with a deft, humane clarity. Warm, sprawling, and dazzling, this intimate epic is one of the undisputed masterworks of the new century.

Cast

NJ JianNianzhen Wu
Min-MinElaine Jin
Mr. OtaIssey Ogata
Ting-TingKelly Lee
Yang-YangJonathan Chang
A-Di Xisheng Chen

Credits

DirectorEdward Yang
ProducerShinya Kawai and Naoko Tsukeda
Associate producersOsamu Kubota and Weiyen Yu
CinematographyWeihan Yang
LightingLongyu Li
EditingBowen Chen
SoundDuzhi Du
MusicKaili Peng
Art directionZhengkai Wang

Disc 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
  • Optional English subtitle translation by Yang and Rayns
  • U.S. theatrical trailer
  • PLUS: A new essay by Kent Jones and notes from the director

From the Current

Yi Yi: Time and Space

by Kent Jones Jul 10, 2006

Near the end of Edward Yang’s unjustly maligned 1996 film Mahjong, a teenage boy is humiliated by a group of older women, and he starts to cry. Yang quietly cuts to a vista of Taipei, and the boy’s sobbing merges with the night. A city of sadness indeed.This strategy—call it...

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Available Editions

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DVD

1 Disc

SRP: $39.95

Criterion Store price

$31.96