YI YI

This movie retraces the ordinary life of a Chinese family from Taipei. The father is a businessman and he works with other associates. Their company is not doing well; so they try to find their way out. The other uses his kindness to send him to meet a possible investor in Japan where he also plans to be spend time with an old girl friend. They were very much in love until he walked out on their last meeting. As they are together, they enjoy the company of each other and remember their past. But she makes a quick escape when he hesitates to answer whether or not he would come to live with her.
The other character is the daughter; she is an adolescent that experiences her first love. She becomes friend with girl and witness how her relationship with her boyfriend deteriorates. She goes on a date with the boyfriend and was ready to consume a relationship with him, but he quickly runs away. As she feels rejected, only her comatose grandma is there for her. She cries out her pain and asks her for forgiveness. The Granma did that on a dream before she dies.
The mother plays little in the film. She has left the house to go to the mountain where she expects to find peace. She had enough of doing the same thing all the time. In vain, because everywhere is the same as she discovers it when she returns for the funeral of grandma.
The little boy is probably the most interesting character in the movie. This little one’s life is very cool. Since the wedding was the movie started, girls were picking on him and he avenges in blowing a ball in their face. They cry out in fear. At the school, he and his partners cause so many troubles to their teacher. They are the trouble makers. He becomes very passionate about a camera photo here he takes shots of people‘s back head. One of his shots figures as the movie’s signature picture in the D.V.D. The boy also admires a girl from the distance. He loves to watch her swimming in the pool. He brings the suspense to the max when he jumps on the pool and strange noise comes out. The movie end with the funeral of the Grandma as the family gathers again for the occasion.
There are themes like love, adolescence, feeling of emptiness, and the ordinary in life. The adolescent young girl certainly experience most of these themes. She was kind of wander around. It is like there is a missing piece which is excitement.

This movie celebrates the realism of life. It captures the reel in those people every day‘s life. The movie does not provide an ideal escape where one can go to in order to look for surrealism and phantasms as in Hollywood production. There is not a dreams life that is sold out. Instead, this realization shows the realism of life. You laugh as they laugh at the wedding and dye as shown in the Grandma funeral at the end. In between, there are your every day activities. There is the fun part with the little boy, the kind of ready to experience with the adolescent girl and the troubles of the father. He has to solve the company troubles and he also kind of remembering the past with the girlfriend. In some ways, we all have to face these moments in our lives.