Elaine Jin and Johathan Chang in "Yi Yi."

MOVIE INFORMATION

With 10 as a must-see, Jack gives this film a: Stars: Wu Nienjen Director: Edward Yang Rated: Unrated Length: 173 minutes; in Mandarin and Taiwanese with English subtitles

ROCHESTERCRITIQUE

Having seen this film, how would you rate it? 10 5 9 4 8 3 7 2 6 1

By Jack Garner
Democrat and Chronicle

(February , 2001) -- How great is Edward Yang's Yi Yi?

Despite nearly three hours of running time, despite focusing "just" on the ups and downs of an average modern Taiwanese family, and despite being in Chinese with English subtitles ... I was sorry to see it end.

I enjoyed the people in the film that much.

Yi Yi (A One and a Two) is a gem of a film that depicts the accomplishments and failures of real life as artfully as that other Chinese wonder, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, celebrates fantasy.

Seldom has a film so richly awarded patient filmgoers with its celebration of the day-to-day subtleties that define life.

And like most honestly told family stories, Yi Yi offers up a full range of emotion. It's funny, sad, triumphant and tragic, and its astute direction earned Yang the best director prize at the 2000 Cannes Film Festival.

The only thing Yi Yi isn't is fast-paced or explosive. If you suffer from cinematic attention deficit syndrome, you could be in trouble.

Yi Yi spotlights the familial and romantic ties involving three generations of a middle-class family who live in a Taipei high-rise. Like other great family films, the movie is bookended by momentous events -- a wedding, then a funeral.

The central character is NJ Jian (Wu Nienjen), a husband and father whose life is out of whack.

His brother-in-law (the groom at the opening) is a ne'er-do-well clown who owes him money, drinks and gambles to abandon.

Hours after the wedding, NJ's elderly mother-in-law collapses and is left in a coma. His wife can't cope and runs off to a mountaintop with a guru, leaving her husband to sign checks to her religious cult.

NJ's teenage daughter is coming of age and cheats on her best friend, by dating the girl's boyfriend. More seriously, she's reeling from guilt, feeling responsible for grandmother's collapse.

However, if NJ is at the heart of Yi Yi, its soul is his 8-year-old son, Yang-Yang (Jonathan Chang).

A resilient and philosophical lad, Yang-Yang makes the profound observation that all we can expect to know about life are "half-truths, because you can't see what's behind you." He underscores his point by snapping pictures of the backs of heads -- the one thing no one can ever see.

Further complicating NJ's life is the collapsing family business.

But during dealings in Japan, he takes the opportunity for a weeklong reunion with an old girlfriend, and the two flirt with the idea of an affair.

(In a typical Hollywood film, the couple would be in the sack within one reel. Here they display maturity and debate moral issues and other complications for the run of the movie.)

Yi Yi literally translates to One and One, a reference to each character's individuality. Director Yang opted for an English translation of A One and a Two because of its musical connotation. It's like calling the film Life is a Song.

As Yang masterfully depicts it, life is more like a full-fledged symphony.