What's special about Yi Yi is that everyone, more or less, sees their own reflections here, the film doesn't rely on dramatic plot twists or flashy visuals, instead, its beauty lies in the subtle observations of life's small joys and heartbreaks. It's a film that celebrates the resilience of the human spirit, the enduring power of love, and the bittersweet beauty of fleeting moments.

Superb if overly long family drama, interacting an extended family and their trials. The cast is superb across the board while director Yang inter connects them beautifully and in surprising ways, from a wedding to a kid with a camera. However, at three hours, it is a bit too long and could have benefited from being cut down a bit. Overall, one of the better family dramas in recent years.

An extraordinary, beautifully paced drama that earns it's intimidating run time. The cinematography is a love letter to urban Taipei and no frame appears to have been left to chance. One or two scene transitions were a little jarring (what are we to think when an unsupervised eight year old jumps into a swimming pool and struggles, only for the scene to end seconds later and cut to two different characters?) but the film is thick with carefully considered moments of joy, tenderness, humour and drama. Each character is able to show us at least a little of their inner-workings. It was a rare joy to follow the numerous ups and downs of the Jian family and I gladly shed a tear during the final scene.

Jeez that was loooong and dull. Some interesting observations on love and life but quite why they took three hours to draw out is beyond me. Not the classic it's made out to be.

Instantly became one of my favourites. Excited to watch more of the director's films.

Yi Yi is one of the best family dramas ever made, it's a unique swan song of great framing and cinematography and subtle performances. I implore everyone to watch this as it shows a family, their lives and their cultures.

A very tender movie about 3 generations of a family living in suburbs of Taipei and their day to day like which is minutely portrayed to details by Yang. Edward Yang's best film along with 'A Brighter Summer Day'. People living in metropolitan will definitely feel they have seen these people in the neighborhood or feel related to their own life.

Yi Yi is a bottle of old wine that refracts our ordinary lives with the ordinary life of a family, perhaps we will slowly be able to feel the difference in flavor as we age.

This movie was made for viewers from a bygone era. The time of crafting a 3 hour movie where there is no second-act crescendo, where the entire first 2.5 hours are just pure exposition and the last half hour can only loosely be described as the climax… that time is over, if it ever even really began. I'm not saying the craftsmanship (at least as far as human drama goes) was anything less than top notch, it's just that what they chose to create was borderline unwatchable. My interest in the characters waned instead of waxed as the second hour passed by with very little happening and I kept hoping the grandma would go ahead and die so there would at least be some burst of emotion. The worst part was how well they had started out, with some really excellent music from what sounded like a viola playing over an exciting wedding scene, as what that scene ultimately accomplished was displaying to the audience what movie they were capable of making (i.e. one worth watching), making the final product even more frustrating. My patience was long gone by the time they nailed the coffin shut by spending several minutes showing a guy explain why people enjoy movies. The notion that this is "one of the great works of 21st century cinema" is as foreign to me as the language they were speaking.

Edward Yang's final film, Yi Yi, is a gem in all respects, a family drama that deals with loss, unrequited love, obligation, loyalty, truth and a myriad of other timely themes. The fact that it clocks in at just under three hours may be a deterrent to some, but the film is so meticulously crafted, well written and superbly acted that you become totally immersed in the issues that impact the family. Yang blocks each scene perfectly, allowing the primarily stationary camera to document the emotions of the characters and their interpersonal relationships in lengthy, uninterrupted takes, often to devasting effect. It is a profound but subtle exploration of human nature that will linger in the memory long after the film has ended.

Brilliant, subtle movie with absolute perfection in all its detail.

A stunningly beautiful film that gave me goosebumps no less than five times. This exquisitely crafted story definitely falls in the "tough to find the words that capture this films essence" camp and will leave me pondering many of these overlapping themes in the weeks to come. Jonathan Chang had me melting as Yang Yang and made this film so much stronger. 9.5/10

Virtually nobody does "day in the life" drama with as much sincerity or power as Edward Yang did, which makes his lack of popular recognition in the Western world all the more tragic. Takes are long and deliberate, of varying distances from the subject, often wordless and introspective, and dialogue is filled with authenticity, including wonderfully awkward pauses and hesitation. Yang is the master of 'empty' space, allowing atmosphere to hang heavy in the air like honey and for conversations to appear appropriately sporadic and impactful. I think that allowing his "less is more" style to extend to a greater proportion of the plot allows for a Yang to craft a greater impact than his other highly acclaimed masterpiece, A Brighter Summer Day, which shares a setting and many stylistic elements but tackles different elements of Taiwanese society; the films have enough power to stand on their own without resorting to using a violent act as a pivot. Still, an endearingly sincere classic of world cinema that maanges to effectively combine domestic commentary with global empathy. (5/5)

1001 movies to see before you die. A powerful family portrait from Taiwan.

I often find Taiwanese movies inaccessible and trying to one's patience. They tend to be long, slow-paced, focus on an extended family, introduce many characters at once, employ few close ups (making it hard to distinguish those characters), depict the mundane, no "plot," minimalist soundtrack. Yi Yi follows those conventions, but does so in a way that slowly draws you in and doesn't let go of your attention. I won't give away what actually happens in the movie, as much of the pleasure in watching it is in discovering the meaning as events unfold. The experience of watching this movie is like being an unobserved anthropologist viewing an extended family (and their neighbors) from a distance. You go in with no context, and rely on your own observation skills to get to know the characters, figure out the relationships and the meaning of events. As you slowly fill in the context and meaning, previous events that were perplexing come into relief, and you begin to appreciate their significance. In a sense, the experience of watching the movie isn't over when the closing credits begin. The following day I had "a ha!" moments as I suddenly put two and two together thinking back on the film. (One thing that amused me in the movie was when a couple teens meet at a movie theater, they stand in front of a poster for The Phantom Menace, which is another long movie about an extended family with no plot, both made by a single visionary writer/director, but is also loud and obnoxious, and turns you away, despite its desperate attempts to be engaging, and you can't help but notice the difference.)

With beautiful and expressive shots, sensitive and eloquent direction, incredible acting by all involved, and a plethora of brilliantly quotable lines, add to that the fact it's considered a "slice-of-life" film, Yi Yi really could have been easily one of my favourite films of all time. Alas, I can't even say that I liked it! Two main reasons this film didn't resonate with me nearly as much as I expected are that: I didn't find the vast majority of the characters to be interesting, and I couldn't see why this is considered to be a slice-of-life film in the first place. The only character I was almost constantly interested in is Yang-Yang. I found the relationship between N.J. and Sherry quite absorbing and engrossing as well as the scenes with N.J. and his Japanese friend; I can't say I really cared about the character of N.J. as I was supposed to be. I couldn't care less about everything related to N.J.'s wife, teenage daughter, brother and business partners. Apart from one scene N.J.'s wife shares with N.J.'s mother that was a bit emotional, I found the film emotionally flat and almost fell asleep every time I see these above-mentioned characters. I found the story-line of Ting-Ting to be one of the most boring and uneventful I've seen in any film. Let alone the fact this film is 3 hours long! A slice-of-life is a term used to describe a piece of art or literature that shows or depicts the ordinary details of real life. And I'm enamored of any film or novel that can be classified under this, so to speak, sub-genre. The thing is I couldn't see that Yi Yi fits this description. What I saw, in the first 30 minuted in particular, are many of uninteresting characters acting in an absurd way. I really couldn't see that this film has mundane real-life events as most people do. (6.5/10)

Too true to be so attractive as a business movie, but i can still enjoy the film duiting the 3 hours. I like the way that the director use different lines in the same movie to express different people of different ages.

One of the best depictions of family life I've ever seen. This film is masterfully directed and acted.

Story of each member in a family of Taiwan, which can be the story of each and every living being there.

While I prefer A Brighter Summer day, Yi Yi explores life themes on a larger scale, using many of the same methods.