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A One And A Two
2000
Focusing on a typical family--parents, two children, and an elderly grandmother--living in a small apartment in Taipei, YI YI (A ONE AND A TWO) is about the patterns of daily life. It includes a wedding, a funeral, a first date, a last date, a birth, and a death. The film follows each member of the Jian family carefully, giving .. Read more
| Starring | Elaine Jin, Nien-Jen Wu, Issey Ogata, Kelly Lee |
|---|---|
| Director | Edward Yang |
| Genres | Drama, World Cinema |
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A One And A Two
Focusing on a typical family--parents, two children, and an elderly grandmother--living in a small apartment in Taipei, YI YI (A ONE AND A TWO) is about the patterns of daily life. It includes a wedding, a funeral, a first date, a last date, a birth, and a death. The film follows each member of the Jian family carefully, giving each one equal time, completely developing each character. NJ (Wu Nienjen), the father of the family, struggles with a dead-end job at a technology firm while reexamining his marriage when he meets his high school sweetheart, Sherry (Ke Suyun), after 30 years. NJ's teenage daughter, Ting-Ting (Kelly Lee), has a selfless demeanor and a naive interest in everything, which diffuses the complexity of her high school life. Her little brother, Yang-Yang (Jonathan Chang), is an adorable five-year-old troublemaker who's in love with a pesky girl in his class. And Yang-Yang's mother, Min-Min (Elaine Jin), grieves for her dying mother (Tang Runyun) while coping with her own middle age in a rapidly maturing family.
Edward Yang, director of 1991's A BRIGHTER SUMMER DAY, presents a careful, direct, meticulously photographed film with YI YI. Brassy shots of Taipei reflected in the windows of a moving car are offset with slow choreographed sequences using the streetlights to narrate little moral tales. Perhaps the most powerful gem in this film is the magical character of Mr. Ota (Issey Ogata), NJ's Japanese business associate, whose optimistic life perspective will inspire and delight YI YI's viewers.
| Starring | Elaine Jin, Nien-Jen Wu, Issey Ogata, Kelly Lee, Jonathan Chang, Hsi-Sheng Chen, Shu-shen Hsiao, Shu-Yuan Hsu, Adrian Lin, Ke Suyun, Ru-Yun Tang, Michael Tao, Hsin-Yi Tseng, Pang Chang Yu |
|---|---|
| Director | Edward Yang |
| Studio | ICA PROJECTS LTD. |
| Run time | DVD: 2 hrs 53 mins |
| Certificate | |
| Genres | Drama, World Cinema |
| Language | DVD: Mandarin |
| Subtitles | DVD: English |
| Released | DVD: not available Production year: 2000 |
| Format | DVD |
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Critics' reviews (6)
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Notable for their complex structure, arresting visuals, measured pace and spare dialogue, Edward Yang's films have always provided a humanist insight into the modern urban experience. But rarely has he exhibited such poetry and precision as in this engrossing domestic epic. With his nerve-frazzled wife dabbling in religion and his kids experiencing growing pains, a bourgeois partner in a computer firm (Wu Nianzhen) hits a midlife crisis that not only proves the unpredictability of life, but also slyly mirrors Taiwan's current sociopolitical insecurity. The performances are superb and the narrative deceptively simple in its workaday naturalism. But this is much more than soap gone art house.
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A cool dissection of three generations of a family, at different but similar points in their trajectories, this wry, detailed narrative, circling at a distance around its protagonists, provides many pleasures, as well as insights into the human condition
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Most helpful member's review
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26 out of 26 people found this review helpful
Find out what the back of your head looks like!
I found it probably the best film of 2002. A sprawling family saga, it's one of those "all human life is there" films which like "Les Enfants du Paradis" really needs the length and breadth it's given to work properly.
After a confusing start we really get to know the characters and become involved with their stories, problems and conflicts and how they relate to one another. A long story about many characters does not a soap opera make; this is a quality piece of work.
This has far more heart than some of Yang's earlier, more formally experimental films such as "The Terroriser" and it benefits from it.
There should be something in here for everyone to relate to, at whatever stage they are in life. As one character says "with films, we experience many more lives than we actually can in one lifetime" and this film is a whole life experience in 3 hours. -
Most recent members' review
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1 out of 1 person found this review helpful
It's OK
I had heard great things about this Taiwanese family drama, hearing comparisons to, among others, Altman. The film itself, however, is a well acted soap opera, one that is never dull but that also never scales the dizzying heights that many critics seemed to think it did.
The deliberately stately pace works well, and the close and incidental connections between the characters are deftly handled, but it is a very hard film to get excited about. It's good, but not great. -
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A One And A Two
Focusing on a typical family--parents, two children, and an elderly grandmother--living in a small apartment in Taipei, YI YI (A ONE AND A TWO) is about the patterns of daily life. It includes a wedding, a funeral, a first date, a last date, a birth, and a death. The film follows each member of the ...
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