Yi Yi: A One and a Two (Widescreen): Amazon.ca: Nien-Jen Wu, Elaine Jin, Issei Ogata, Kelly Lee, Jonathan Chang, Hsi-Sheng Chen, Su-Yun Ko, Shu-shen Hsiao, Adriene Lin, Pang Chang Yu, Ru-Yun Tang, Shu-Yuan Hsu, Edward Yang, Michiyo Sat�, Naoko Tsukeda, Osamu Kunota, Shin'ya Kawai, Wei-yen Yu, Yoshiko Okura: DVD

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A wedding and a grandmother's illness reveal fault lines in the lives of one Taipei family in Edward Yang's extraordinary film. Yi Yi is built from deceptively simple elements that together create a complex, warm, and utterly convincing portrait of family life. NJ Jian is a businessman facing bankruptcy, but he has to juggle his financial problems with family strife when his mother-in-law falls into a coma. NJ's wife, Min-Min, brings her mother home, and each family member--including daughter Ting-Ting and her delightful little brother Yang-Yang--spends hours talking to the old lady. These conversations become confessionals and the characters gradually re-evaluate their relationships. There are no catastrophic conflicts, only the ordinary, sometimes troubled, unfolding of lives. Yang enhances the film's sense of reality by frequently holding the camera back from the action. The use of long shots and unexpected angles makes it seem like the audience is eavesdropping, catching glimpses of lives passing by. Yi Yi is almost three hours long, but it flies by. Yang is both a consummate, restrained technician and a subtle director of actors. The combination is a magical one. --Simon Leake

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Customer Reviews

38 Reviews

5 star:		(24)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(4)

Average Customer Review

4.1 out of 5 stars (38 customer reviews)

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3 of 4 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars We only see one side of things and people, Mar 30 2004

By

Jacques COULARDEAU "A soul doctor, so to say" (OLLIERGUES France) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)

This review is from: Yi Yi (VHS Tape)

This Taiwanese film is fascinating for us westerners because of the vision it gives of love and women in Chinese society. Love has a wider meaning than what we generally comprehend with this word. It is not only love for a woman or a man with a sentimental or sexual intention, but it is the basic human dimension of society. This is very true in the revealing dimension the coma of the grand mother takes in the family circle and the impossibility for everyone to speak to that comatose woman in spite of the love the various members do feel for her. The conclusion of the film, the love declaration of the little son, but after the death of the grandmother, is a real illumination about how love is an exchange of experience, and the little boy can feel old because he exchanges his age with his grandmother's and hence regenerates her in her own death. But this love, within a couple, becomes the revealing element of the frustrations and expectations of the woman who is finding her liberation, hence her possible realization as a free being in this love relation. On the side of the boy or man, there is a fear, the fear to be in a way enslaved, reduced to a state of non-liberty by this very love. And yet the father discovers through the meeting of an old girl-friend of his he ran away from not to become the slave of her willfulness that he did what she wanted him to do which became the reason of his flight. Hence love becomes a mirror in which there is a perfect exchange of motivations and visions : she sees him like this and this becomes his perspective, and vice versa. This leads us to the conclusion that real love is a double mirror in which each lover falls mutually and simultaneously. This double mirror is both fascinating and disturbing. Are we living in a gallery of mirrors where the mirrors are our own neighbors for whom we are one mirror among others ? And this is amplified by the little boy who is obsessed by the fact that we can only see one side of a person at the time and never see the other side at the same time. We are both witnesses and blind people since we can both see and not see at the same time. In, other words seeing something means not seeing something else. This entertwining of vision and blindness, along with mirror ghosts that are what we see brings us to a really Chinese experience : remember the proverb about a finger showing the moon and what an idiot will do : look at the finger and miss the moon. But is the one who sees the moon and misses the finger more intelligent ?

Dr Jacques COULARDEAU

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2.0 out of 5 stars Worst DVD Transfer Ever!, July 15 2004

By A Customer

This review is from: Yi Yi: A One and a Two (Widescreen) (DVD)

The quality of this DVD makes The Last Emperor transfer actually look good by comparison. Yi-Yi was filmed in 35mm, but to see it on DVD you'd swear it was done in 8mm. On top of that, the images are jittery, not smoothe.

The people who oversaw the production of this DVD, Maryann Manelski and Kimberly Rubin, have a lot of explaining to do.

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3.0 out of 5 stars VHS is IMPOSSIBLE to READ!, July 4 2004

By

(Rizzo) Rizzuto (Denver) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Yi Yi (VHS Tape)

I'm not sure what the DVD is like, but the VHS is impossible to read or follow. Good translation requires subtitles that are easy to read, with good timing or placed on a black strip background.

But here, and at many times, WHITE subtitles are up against a WHITE FLOOR or WHITE SHIRTS! Now how easy can that be to read, especially if the titles move quickly?

I gave this an hour's attempt, armed with finger on the PAUSE button, rewinding and straining to read the subtitles and I could not possibly follow along. Often Japanese movies don't give us good close-ups, so it is difficult to know who is who, plus who is speaking!

This review pertains to the VHS version. So, unfortunately, I can't tell you anything about the movie. You need to understand the language, read lips, mind read or invite a Japanese friend over to translate for you. Scrap it!...MzRizz

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Most recent customer reviews

2.0 out of 5 stars Ai-Yi Yi!
The problem with Yi Yi is not with the director or the cast -- it's the fact that the story is not truthful enough to make this style of film work. Read more

Published on Mar 30 2004 by jumpy1

4.0 out of 5 stars As it is
It's rather refreshing to watch a movie these days without resorting to special effects. What a breath of fresh air this movie is by giving us a glimpse of a typical family life... Read more

Published on Jan 1 2004 by Ping Lim

5.0 out of 5 stars one by ed yang
~I can't write much about the film that others haven't. Yi Yi has been bemoaned as Yang's concession to mainstream audiences (after a career of making formally rigorous,... Read more

Published on Dec 30 2003 by Kristopher Kincaid

3.0 out of 5 stars Great movie, bad DVD
This is 5 star movie but this particular transfer is really terrible. It's worse than a VCD. I am so dissappointed with it that I have to give it away immediately after I watched... Read more

Published on Sep 3 2003 by lio

5.0 out of 5 stars a film about nothing and everything
What do you expect to see in a movie?

As a movie made by Taiwanese, who are influenced by both the traditional Chinese culture and modern Western civilization, Yi Yi is not an... Read more

Published on Dec 30 2002 by C. Tsao

5.0 out of 5 stars what is gonna happen is gonna happen
Yi yi is a very good family drama which is made in Taiwan.
First of all, a Taiwanese film needs a patience. Read more

Published on Dec 19 2002 by kuroneko1

5.0 out of 5 stars Masterpiece
I was flipping through the channels one lonely winter day looking for something good to watch. I have around 100 movie channels and ther was still nothing. Read more

Published on Dec 7 2002 by shrek656

1.0 out of 5 stars Soap Opera waste of my time
I saw this film at the theatre and it is simply the worst Chinese movie I have ever seen. It is a dull soap opera, comparable to the dull week-day soap operas on TV. Read more

Published on Jun 22 2002 by Richard Vowles

1.0 out of 5 stars Cute but tiresome
Had guests over (two of whom spoke Chinese) and we watched this movie based on all of these glowing reviews. Read more

Published on Jun 9 2002

5.0 out of 5 stars Life
This is life. If we humans had only three hours to explain aliens what it meant to be human, this is the film to show them. Read more

Published on April 22 2002 by ANG