everything... something. What do I mean by everything... something? It's an assessment of the feeling I have after seeing this film. I'm overwhelmed, I'm touched, I'm a little bit amazed... but I'm not sure what caused all this. More or less, Yi Yi is the story of a nuclear family and each member's individual experiences. The film follows each character over a short period of life (perhaps a few months, one year?) as the most significant moments of human life occur. In other words, a first love, wedding, funeral, birth, murder, reminiscence, recapitulation, and all the rest of it... There's something for everyone to relate to, whether you like it or not. Perhaps that's what touched me so much about the film. I don't think I've ever seen something that so delicately and meticulously examined the extreme experiences that members of different age groups and gender have in human society. And it's cute, and sometimes ironic, and well, everything. Comparisons to more popular films might include Magnolia, for example, or The Ice Storm. But the style, while not altogether original, also caught my eye. Yang never gets too close to his characters - we are kept at a distance. The viewer is purposefully detached from any sort of voyeuristic tinge. In other words, while the big Hollywood directors zoom in for their big moment-Oscar winning-Meryl Streep-running tears-extreme-close-up, Yang prefers to film such moments through glass, in reflection, in long shot, making visible only the character's back or profile, in the dark, etc. I really liked this movie. It is long, so prepare to be patient. But if you let yourself get involved, you will only want to see more when the film reaches its conclusion.