Yi Yi (2000)

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The extraordinary, internationally embraced Yi Yi (A One and a Two . . .), directed by the late Taiwanese master EDWARD YANG (A Brighter Summer Day), follows a middle-class family in Taipei over the course of one year, beginning with a wedding and ending with a funeral. Whether chronicling middle-age father NJ's tentative flirtations with an old flame or precocious young son Yang-Yang's attempts at capturing reality with his beloved camera, the filmmaker deftly imbues every gorgeous frame with a compassionate clarity. Warm, sprawling, and dazzling, this intimate epic is one of the undisputed masterworks of the new century.

edward yang's award-winning masterpiece follows the lives of nj jian, his wife, min-min, and their two kids who share their taipei apartment with min-min's elderly mother. now in his midforties, nj is a partner in a computer hardware firm which made big profits last year but which will soon go bankrupt if it doesn't change direction. things start to go wrong for the jians on the day that min-min's brother a-di gets married. that's the day when min-min's mother suffers a stroke and is rushed to the hospital in a coma from which she may never awaken. it's also the day when nj bumps into his childhood sweetheart, a woman (now married to an american) he hasn't seen for twenty years. in the following weeks, the entire family will have to re-evaluate who they are and what their lives have become.