--The music director is Edward Yang's wife, a classical musician.
--NJ is a fan of 50s and 60s American music, in part a vestige of American influence on Taiwan during that time period. He sings "Sha Na Na" and an Elvis song at one point.
--The piano piece Ting-Ting plays is a version of George Gershwin's "Summertime." The song is used ironically in the sense that the family is struggling with the Grandmother's incapacity.
--The song Mr. Ota plays on the piano is a famous Japanese pop song--"Ue wo muite arukou," by Kyu Sakamoto. It is known as "Sukiyaki" in the U.S., and it was the first #1 song in the U.S. that was not in English (in 1964). The first lines, translated, "I look up when I walk so the tears won't fall /Remembering those happy spring days / But tonight I'm all alone." You'll notice it's sung in a rather upbeat manner despite its subject matter. (The melody was used for several American R&B songs in the 1980s, keeping the name "Sukiyaki." Why we renamed the song after a type of noodle, I don't know.)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RtXQ31F1A-k
--After Mr. Ota finishes the Sakamoto song, he launches into Beethoven's "Moonlight Sonata." Notice that the song moves from diegetic to nondiegetic sound. First, it's a striking contrast: a piano bar suddenly flooded with classical music. Next, it reflects the mood as NJ does the middle-age equivalent of drunk dialing when he leaves a message for his ex-girlfriend.
Tuesday, October 26, 2010
Thursday, May 29, 2008
Yi Yi Questions
Useful Trivia: NJ is played by Wu Nian-jen, one of the major figures of the New Taiwan Cinema movement, mostly as a screenwriter. He also directed the awesomely titled Buddha Bless America.
Themes:
--People generally feel that contemporary life is difficult and frustrating.
--We regret many things. Sometimes we wish we could change the past.
--Life goes on no matter what.
--Learning is painful.
--Sexual awakening is captivating and confusing
--Love has many valences
--Sexual jealousy is powerful (sexual jealousy is any type of anger that relates to love, emotions, and gender. If you see two people kissing and it angers you [especially one of those people is an ex-lover or someone you are attracted to], that is a form of sexual jealousy. Sexual jealousy can be very subtle or very intense).
--Frustration is a part of life (unless you are Yang-Yang).
--Reaction: how do we, and how should we, respond to something? Why do people spend so much time thinking of how to react?
Things to Look At
--The parallel between Ting-Ting’s and NJ’s date. They do many of the same things. Also, NJ’s dates with Sherry in the past also have many similarities with Ting-Ting’s current experiences.
Note For 262 Class: the technical term for this--linking images and themes visually--is "parallel editing".
--Metacommentary: Ting-Ting talks about a movie being “too serious”; Fatty foreshadows the “murder” that movies can show us.
–The movie discussion between Fatty and Ting-Ting.
–-“Magic scene” of Grandmother waking up to forgive Ting-Ting.
“To sleep with someone means nothing now.” –NJ. Fatty doesn’t believe this. Why is it interesting that NJ is wrong?
“I have everything. What am I afraid of?”—A-Sherry
Casual observations of sexism: the boss keeps many mistresses; the young girl at the business only answers phones and carries things. The tough women (Lili and her mom) can only assert themselves sexually. People are very quick to think negative things about Xiao Yan and Yun-Yun.
Questions
What parts of the film do you relate to? What parts of the film do you understand even if you don’t relate to it? Are there parts of the film that the think are ineffective or that make incorrect observations about people?
Is there a connection between Yang-Yang’s teacher’s relationship with young female assistants and Lili’s English teacher’s relationship with Lili?
If you are from a big city, does this film reflect how people feel and how people experience things in big city life? If you are not from a big city, how does the city affect people differently than a smaller place? How would Ting-Ting and Yang-Yang learn about love differently in a smaller town?
News mentions of Wen-Ho Lee and Matra (the French transportation company that bilked the Taiwanese government out of millions). Why mention these things?
“Thunder created all life on Earth”: Yang-Yang watches a video about nature when he sees a girl that he starts to fall in love with. How is love like a “force of nature”?
“How can I know what you see?”
“Can we only know half the truth?”—Yang-Yang
“Every day in life is a first time. Every morning is new. We never live the same day twice…”—Ota. What does Ota (the Japanese computer designer) mean?
—How is the film hopeful? We see that Ota understands life well even when his life is difficult. We see that Ting-Ting has some sense of hope: she feels that her grandmother has forgiven her, and her plant has blossomed. Yang-Yang seems to be doing fine in his attempts to understand life. What about the other characters? Are they hopeless?
“Young people always find their own way.”—Ota. Ota says this to NJ and Sherry. How are NJ and Sherry still “young”? How does this quote reflect Ting-Ting and Yang-Yang’s experiences? They have to “find their way,” and they don’t seem to get a lot of help or support from the adults.
--What characters did you like the most? Why? What characters did you dislike the most? Why? Think of the least sympathetic characters and try to think of something positive about them that we see in the move. (Example: After A-Di’s suicide attempt, we see that Xiao Yan seems really to love A-Di.)
What scene did you most enjoy, or what scene affected you the most? Why did you enjoy it? How did it affect you?
Why does the movie have Yang-Yang learn about love in a “cute” way while Ting-Ting learns about love (and sex) in a very scary way?
Why do some people always fail to make good decisions or be good people no matter what opportunities they have? A-Di is so lucky, yet he makes so many mistakes, and he continues to act badly and lie. Can we understand why he acts the way that he does? Can we be sympathetic to him? Does he remind us of ourselves or people we know?
--Why do people imitate the behavior that upsets them? Lili is disgusted by her mother’s promiscuity, yet she shows her disgust by being promiscuous herself.
A major theme in the film is sexual awakening. Yang-Yang starts to like a girl. Ting-Ting starts to develop feelings of love and desire, and she discovers that love and sex are very complicated, painful, and disturbing things. (Another point of comparison: There is a “cute” underwear shot of a girl that Yang-Yang notices. With Ting-Ting’s stories, we are more aware of the seriousness of sexuality.)
A lot of the movie looks at major themes—birth, death, love, pain—in very subtle ways. Yet near the end Fatty murders the English teacher out of sexual jealousy. This is very shocking, and it is very different from the rest of the movie. Why include this event in the movie? What might it mean?
Why do we learn about Fatty’s murder through a news story? What does that mean? What does it say about the media’s obsession with violence and sensation? (Contrast the news about violence and sensation to the Jians’ lives, which are not at all sensational.)
Can we understand why Fatty would murder the English teacher? Do we understand his feelings? Have we had similar feelings before ourselves? (The German writer Goethe said, “I can imagine myself committing the greatest crime. Nothing human is foreign to me.”)
The movie talks about “violent and killing videogames” early on: Mr. Ota says that video games tend to be violent not because computer technology is limited, but because humans don’t understand themselves. Later, we see Fatty’s murder of the English teacher recreated as a violent video game. Why do this?
Is it important to be happy? How can we be? What does this movie say about happiness?
--Does NJ love his wife? Why is it so hard to tell? Is it still hard to tell whether or not adults love each other?
--Can we be sympathetic to Min-Min even though she abandons her family during an important time?
Yun-Yun continues to love and support A-Di after A-Di has married someone else. What makes people carry a torch [love them no matter what] for others? Why do we continue to love someone long after they should no longer be part of our lives?
Are you too young to understand NJ and Sherry’s regret over the decisions they’ve made in their lives? What if one of your parents left the family to be with his or her “true love” from the past? Obviously, you would be upset, but could you understand why he or she might make such a decision?
Think of family members who work. How hard is their job? Are they happy? What does NJ’s unhappiness with the business world tell us about how much work can hurt our mind and soul?
A lot of the movie looks at major themes—birth, death, love, pain—in very subtle ways. For example, in most movies or television shows, a mother who does not want to attend her son’s wedding would make a very angry speech. In Yi Yi, the mother simply says that she doesn’t feel well and wants to go home. It is such a quiet event that we might forget how powerful it is for a mother to not stay at one of her children’s weddings. Why does the movie look at serious issues in such quiet ways? Is that how we learn about and experience things in real life?
The movie is “realistic” at first in the way that it shows slow and ordinary and banal events. But near the end, it has more “movie” events. There is a murder (we know this is a “movie” event because we don’t normally have a close experience with murder; also, Fatty talks about how movies “show us what it’s like to kill someone"). There is a fantasy sequence (Ting-Ting imagines that her grandmother has woken up). What’s the effect of the movie being mostly slow and quiet, yet near the end having violence and fantasies like in many other movies?
What about NJ’s attitude toward his kids? He is sad that “Ting-Ting will soon be someone else’s,” and he wants to be Yang-Yang’s friend because NJ’s father was not friendly. Do we understand NJ’s attitude? Do we know adults who act like NJ and have similar ideas toward parenting?
Themes:
--People generally feel that contemporary life is difficult and frustrating.
--We regret many things. Sometimes we wish we could change the past.
--Life goes on no matter what.
--Learning is painful.
--Sexual awakening is captivating and confusing
--Love has many valences
--Sexual jealousy is powerful (sexual jealousy is any type of anger that relates to love, emotions, and gender. If you see two people kissing and it angers you [especially one of those people is an ex-lover or someone you are attracted to], that is a form of sexual jealousy. Sexual jealousy can be very subtle or very intense).
--Frustration is a part of life (unless you are Yang-Yang).
--Reaction: how do we, and how should we, respond to something? Why do people spend so much time thinking of how to react?
Things to Look At
--The parallel between Ting-Ting’s and NJ’s date. They do many of the same things. Also, NJ’s dates with Sherry in the past also have many similarities with Ting-Ting’s current experiences.
Note For 262 Class: the technical term for this--linking images and themes visually--is "parallel editing".
--Metacommentary: Ting-Ting talks about a movie being “too serious”; Fatty foreshadows the “murder” that movies can show us.
–The movie discussion between Fatty and Ting-Ting.
–-“Magic scene” of Grandmother waking up to forgive Ting-Ting.
“To sleep with someone means nothing now.” –NJ. Fatty doesn’t believe this. Why is it interesting that NJ is wrong?
“I have everything. What am I afraid of?”—A-Sherry
Casual observations of sexism: the boss keeps many mistresses; the young girl at the business only answers phones and carries things. The tough women (Lili and her mom) can only assert themselves sexually. People are very quick to think negative things about Xiao Yan and Yun-Yun.
Questions
What parts of the film do you relate to? What parts of the film do you understand even if you don’t relate to it? Are there parts of the film that the think are ineffective or that make incorrect observations about people?
Is there a connection between Yang-Yang’s teacher’s relationship with young female assistants and Lili’s English teacher’s relationship with Lili?
If you are from a big city, does this film reflect how people feel and how people experience things in big city life? If you are not from a big city, how does the city affect people differently than a smaller place? How would Ting-Ting and Yang-Yang learn about love differently in a smaller town?
News mentions of Wen-Ho Lee and Matra (the French transportation company that bilked the Taiwanese government out of millions). Why mention these things?
“Thunder created all life on Earth”: Yang-Yang watches a video about nature when he sees a girl that he starts to fall in love with. How is love like a “force of nature”?
“How can I know what you see?”
“Can we only know half the truth?”—Yang-Yang
“Every day in life is a first time. Every morning is new. We never live the same day twice…”—Ota. What does Ota (the Japanese computer designer) mean?
—How is the film hopeful? We see that Ota understands life well even when his life is difficult. We see that Ting-Ting has some sense of hope: she feels that her grandmother has forgiven her, and her plant has blossomed. Yang-Yang seems to be doing fine in his attempts to understand life. What about the other characters? Are they hopeless?
“Young people always find their own way.”—Ota. Ota says this to NJ and Sherry. How are NJ and Sherry still “young”? How does this quote reflect Ting-Ting and Yang-Yang’s experiences? They have to “find their way,” and they don’t seem to get a lot of help or support from the adults.
--What characters did you like the most? Why? What characters did you dislike the most? Why? Think of the least sympathetic characters and try to think of something positive about them that we see in the move. (Example: After A-Di’s suicide attempt, we see that Xiao Yan seems really to love A-Di.)
What scene did you most enjoy, or what scene affected you the most? Why did you enjoy it? How did it affect you?
Why does the movie have Yang-Yang learn about love in a “cute” way while Ting-Ting learns about love (and sex) in a very scary way?
Why do some people always fail to make good decisions or be good people no matter what opportunities they have? A-Di is so lucky, yet he makes so many mistakes, and he continues to act badly and lie. Can we understand why he acts the way that he does? Can we be sympathetic to him? Does he remind us of ourselves or people we know?
--Why do people imitate the behavior that upsets them? Lili is disgusted by her mother’s promiscuity, yet she shows her disgust by being promiscuous herself.
A major theme in the film is sexual awakening. Yang-Yang starts to like a girl. Ting-Ting starts to develop feelings of love and desire, and she discovers that love and sex are very complicated, painful, and disturbing things. (Another point of comparison: There is a “cute” underwear shot of a girl that Yang-Yang notices. With Ting-Ting’s stories, we are more aware of the seriousness of sexuality.)
A lot of the movie looks at major themes—birth, death, love, pain—in very subtle ways. Yet near the end Fatty murders the English teacher out of sexual jealousy. This is very shocking, and it is very different from the rest of the movie. Why include this event in the movie? What might it mean?
Why do we learn about Fatty’s murder through a news story? What does that mean? What does it say about the media’s obsession with violence and sensation? (Contrast the news about violence and sensation to the Jians’ lives, which are not at all sensational.)
Can we understand why Fatty would murder the English teacher? Do we understand his feelings? Have we had similar feelings before ourselves? (The German writer Goethe said, “I can imagine myself committing the greatest crime. Nothing human is foreign to me.”)
The movie talks about “violent and killing videogames” early on: Mr. Ota says that video games tend to be violent not because computer technology is limited, but because humans don’t understand themselves. Later, we see Fatty’s murder of the English teacher recreated as a violent video game. Why do this?
Is it important to be happy? How can we be? What does this movie say about happiness?
--Does NJ love his wife? Why is it so hard to tell? Is it still hard to tell whether or not adults love each other?
--Can we be sympathetic to Min-Min even though she abandons her family during an important time?
Yun-Yun continues to love and support A-Di after A-Di has married someone else. What makes people carry a torch [love them no matter what] for others? Why do we continue to love someone long after they should no longer be part of our lives?
Are you too young to understand NJ and Sherry’s regret over the decisions they’ve made in their lives? What if one of your parents left the family to be with his or her “true love” from the past? Obviously, you would be upset, but could you understand why he or she might make such a decision?
Think of family members who work. How hard is their job? Are they happy? What does NJ’s unhappiness with the business world tell us about how much work can hurt our mind and soul?
A lot of the movie looks at major themes—birth, death, love, pain—in very subtle ways. For example, in most movies or television shows, a mother who does not want to attend her son’s wedding would make a very angry speech. In Yi Yi, the mother simply says that she doesn’t feel well and wants to go home. It is such a quiet event that we might forget how powerful it is for a mother to not stay at one of her children’s weddings. Why does the movie look at serious issues in such quiet ways? Is that how we learn about and experience things in real life?
The movie is “realistic” at first in the way that it shows slow and ordinary and banal events. But near the end, it has more “movie” events. There is a murder (we know this is a “movie” event because we don’t normally have a close experience with murder; also, Fatty talks about how movies “show us what it’s like to kill someone"). There is a fantasy sequence (Ting-Ting imagines that her grandmother has woken up). What’s the effect of the movie being mostly slow and quiet, yet near the end having violence and fantasies like in many other movies?
What about NJ’s attitude toward his kids? He is sad that “Ting-Ting will soon be someone else’s,” and he wants to be Yang-Yang’s friend because NJ’s father was not friendly. Do we understand NJ’s attitude? Do we know adults who act like NJ and have similar ideas toward parenting?
The "Video Game Image" in Yi Yi
When the film recreates Fatty's murder of the English teacher as a video game (modeled after games such as the Streetfighter series), it should remind the viewer of Ota's (the Japanese game designer) first speech. He says that, "we haven't moved beyond violent and killing games not because we don't understand computers, but because we don't understand ourselves [i.e. human nature]." Fatty does not have enough understanding of or control over his emotions, so he becomes violent, like in a videogame. Don't think that the movie is making a simplistic argument that video games cause violence; it's clear that Ota thinks that video games reflect our violent impulses.
It's fine to laugh at this scene, and it is impressive that Fatty managed an 18 hit combo, but also note that it is visually common in Taiwan to recreate real-life violence with cartoons. In issues of "Apple" newspaper, for example, most stories are about violence or sexual exploitation. Usually the newspaper article will show a picture of the victim or a crimes scene, and then the newspaper will provide a cartoon recreation of the crime. (Example: if there was a car accident, we might see a real picture of the victim and some cartoon pictures showing the victim getting hit by the car.) So the video game image of Fatty killing the English teacher is also a reference to the use of cartoon images in tabloid reporting. Update: With the popularity of Taiwanese news animation (the Tiger Woods animation and the Tea Party animation are Youtube phenomena), we see how ahead of his time Yang is in noticing how we use video representations for baser interests.
Here's the Youtube link for the Tiger saga: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fGfVB9kA5QQ
Note that we learn of Fatty's murder through the news. The news is sensationalized: it gives us all the details about violence and sex. The movie shows us that there is much more to life and love than that. Why doesn't the movie have Ting-Ting or the audience learn about the murder in a different way? (For examples, the cops or a friend could tell her.)
It's fine to laugh at this scene, and it is impressive that Fatty managed an 18 hit combo, but also note that it is visually common in Taiwan to recreate real-life violence with cartoons. In issues of "Apple" newspaper, for example, most stories are about violence or sexual exploitation. Usually the newspaper article will show a picture of the victim or a crimes scene, and then the newspaper will provide a cartoon recreation of the crime. (Example: if there was a car accident, we might see a real picture of the victim and some cartoon pictures showing the victim getting hit by the car.) So the video game image of Fatty killing the English teacher is also a reference to the use of cartoon images in tabloid reporting. Update: With the popularity of Taiwanese news animation (the Tiger Woods animation and the Tea Party animation are Youtube phenomena), we see how ahead of his time Yang is in noticing how we use video representations for baser interests.
Here's the Youtube link for the Tiger saga: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fGfVB9kA5QQ
Note that we learn of Fatty's murder through the news. The news is sensationalized: it gives us all the details about violence and sex. The movie shows us that there is much more to life and love than that. Why doesn't the movie have Ting-Ting or the audience learn about the murder in a different way? (For examples, the cops or a friend could tell her.)
Yi Yi Summary
Sorry for any typos.
S.
Yi Yi
--It is A-Di’s wedding day. His wife, Xiao Yan, is very pregnant.
Yun-Yun, A-Di’s ex-girlfriend, comes to the wedding to make a scene. She apologizes to A-Di’s mother for not marrying A-Di.
A-Di’s mother (“Grandmother”) decides she is sick and doesn’t want to stay for the wedding. A-Di’s mother is also Min-Min’s mother. Min-Min’s husband, NJ, and their daughter, Ting-Ting, take Grandmother home. Ting-Ting meets the new neighbor girl, Lili. Ting-Ting is supposed to take out the trash, but she forgets about some of the trash because she is watching Lili talk with her boyfriend Fatty.
Yang-Yang, the youngest son of NJ and Min-Min, is sad at the wedding because the girls make fun of him. NJ takes him to McDonald’s. When they come back to the wedding, NJ runs into his ex-girlfriend, A-Sherry, as A-Sherry comes out of the elevator. Sherry tells him she lives in America. She gives NJ her card, then leaves. She comes back to ask NJ why he left her and tell him that she’s never gotten over him. NJ still hasn’t said anything. NJ’s coworker and Sherry’s classmate comes out of the elevator and diffuses the situation.
The family comes home late from the wedding. A neighbor tells Min-Min that her mother has had a stroke. The family rushes to the hospital.
“Grandmother” is in a coma. She returns home. Yang-Yang doesn’t know what to say to her. A-Di lies to her about being successful when it comes time to talk to her. Ting Ting believes it is her fault that Grandma had the stroke because she didn’t take down the trash. She tells grandma, “If you forgive me, wake up. I can’t sleep until you do.” Her class project, a plant, still hasn’t bloomed, and she falls asleep in class because guilt keeps her awake at night.
Yang-Yang brings a balloon to school. One of the older girls thinks it is a condom. The Dean yells at Yang-Yang even after he finds out that it is only a balloon. The Dean seems to like to have a lot of older female students around him.
NJ and his partners (including the former classmate who sees A-Sherry and some other friends and classmates) are trying to revive their failing computer company. The spokesman for their main source of funding accepts their idea of hiring the Japanese videogame designer Ota.
The movie connects a sonogram for A-Di’s wife to Ota’s speech about video games. Ota believes games are like children, but games still tend to be fighting and killing games because people do not understand themselves. NJ likes Ota’s ideas, but his company wants to think about it more before signing him. They make NJ have dinner with Ota. NJ is upset that business is about lying and “pretending to be nice.” Ota is a little weird, but he seems to know who he is.
Lili and Ting-Ting are making a healthy meal. Ting-Ting is sad that her dad cannot have dinner with them. Lili’s mom brings a new boyfriend to the apartment. Lili suddenly tells her mom that she and Ting-Ting are going to the movies. Ting-Ting is confused. Lili wants to leave because she is uncomfortable with her mother’s promiscuity.
Instead of going to the movies, Ting-Ting and Lili go to see Fatty at the music store at which Fatty works. Fatty promises to meet them at a coffee shop. Ting-Ting goes home, and it seems Lili is stood up. She yells at some boys (including one returning from military service), who yell back.
Ota and NJ have dinner together. Ota gives NJ a speech about how people should try new things because, after all, everything is new, every day is new. Ota understands if the company doesn’t want to sign him. The two of them talk a lot about music. After the dinner, NJ calls Sherry and leaves a message in Taiwanese on her answering machine. He feared that her "hard life" in the past was his fault, and he tells her that he's happy that she has a good life now. He also begins the speech saying that he wouldn't have been able to talk if she had answered the phone.
Min-Min is very upset because she feels her life is empty. She can only tell her mom the same boring things every day. NJ tries to comfort her, but he doesn’t do a very good job: he just closes the door and says he can have the nurse read the paper to Min-Min’s mom. Min-Min decides that she needs to go to a spiritual retreat to heal.
Yang-Yang talks to his dad about how people can’t know each other, and he talks about how people can only know “half”. Yang-Yang starts to take pictures of mosquitoes. He develops pictures during school, and he gets in trouble with the girls and the dean. The dean makes fun of his pictures.
Fatty asks Ting-Ting to give Lili a message. Lili is kissing the military man she yelled at the other night. She hates her mom’s promiscuity, but she seems to be imitating it. Lili acts casually when Ting-Ting gives her the letter.
The spiritual leader of the place that Min-Min went to comes to visit NJ. NJ figures that the leader wants money, so he gives it to him. NJ says to the leader that the retreat isn’t for him. (NJ has an interesting attitude toward religion. He tells Grandmother that talking to her while she's in a coma is like praying: he's not sure if he's talking to anyone, and he's not sure if he's worthy of being listened to by the gods or the grandmother).
A-Di gets thrown out of his house by Xiao Yan. He ends up at his ex-girlfriend’s (Yun-Yun) house. He watches pornograpy in his ex-girlfriend's bed. The money his ex-girlfriend gave him has been stolen by A-Di’s friend. They go to the friend’s house to find that it has been abandoned. Yun-Yun finds some expensive jade, but A-Di thinks it is worthless and throws it to the ground.
Yang-Yang and his friends throw a water balloon onto the dean. Yang-Yang hides in a video room. A girl comes in, and Yang-Yang finds himself fascinated with her.
Ting-Ting has tea with Fatty. When Ting-Ting comes home, she witnesses Lili in the midst of discovering that Lili’s mother and English teacher are having sex. (At first, Ting-Ting thought Lili was upset because Ting-Ting had tea with Fatty.)
A-Di and Xiao Yan’s baby is born. The baby has a bad horoscope, so they don’t name him right away. A-Di cries while watching a video of the baby on a monitor next to Xiao Yan's bed (which visually recalls him watching pornography in Yun-Yun's bed). At the baby party, Yun-Yun shows up uninvited, and her presence leads to tension and eventually a fight. Xiao Yan’s friends threaten A-Di, and A-Di’s friends argue that Yun-Yun deserves to be at the party.
NJ drives A-Di home from the disastrous baby party ("baby shower" in English, although a baby shower is usually before a baby is born and attended only by women). A-Di tells NJ that he “helped out” Yun-Yun when he stayed with her after Xiao Yan threw him out of the house, and NJ can only laugh at him.
NJ takes A-Di home, but he doesn’t want to stay. It’s an amazing house. We see that A-Di is very lucky even though he is vain and stupid. A-Di seems upset, and it seems he tries to commit suicide. Xiao Yan comes home the next morning to find A-Di naked in the bathroom. It seems he might be dead, but he isn’t. Likely A-Di tried to commit suicide by leaving the gas on in the bathroom. Since A-Di cannot do anything right, his suicide attempt fails. A-Di acts as if it were just an accident. Crying on A-Di's lap, Xiao Yan is very upset, and she promises not to be angry with him any more.
Ting-Ting tells Fatty that she won’t give Lili notes for him anymore, but Fatty claims that he likes her now ("This [letter] is for you."). Eventually, they go on a few dates. (Before the first big date, we see Lili’s English teacher walk out of Lili’s apartment awkwardly. Then we see Lili’s mom coming home. It seems Lili might be having an affair with her English teacher.) Fatty tells Ting-Ting her uncle’s theory that movies allow us to live “many lives.” We can experience things that we will never do, “like murder,” when we watch movies.
On a later date, Fatty tells Ting-Ting that he loves only her. (Earlier, Lili confronts Ting-Ting about her relationship with Fatty. Ting-Ting says that she and Fatty are “just friends.”) Ting-Ting and Fatty go to a concert featuring the instrument that Lili plays. Fatty tells Ting-Ting that he loves only her, and they kiss. They go to a love hotel, but Fatty says, “This is wrong” and runs away.
Yang-Yang sees that the girl he likes is a swimmer. He starts to practice holding his breath in the sink at home so that he can become a good swimmer too. Yang-Yang starts to take pictures of the back of people’s heads so that they can see what they can’t see. Yang-Yang jumps into the pool after practicing his breathing. It seems he can’t swim. He is alone. We are worried that he drowned, but he didn’t.
NJ is told to go to Japan to sign Ota. The company has a very successful patron who is a womanizer. He is keen to help them work with Ota.
A-Sherry calls NJ. She says she will fly to Japan to see him. Ota lets NJ and Sherry spend time together before NJ and Ota have a business meeting. NJ and Sherry tour Tokyo together. They hold hands like a boyfriend and girlfriend. NJ and Sherry’s trip to Tokyo parallels Ting-Ting’s first major date with Fatty (holding hands, etc.). Later (after Ting-Ting’s date is over), NJ and Sherry go to a park in Tokyo. Sherry tells NJ about what she did after NJ left her. She tells him how angry she is. NJ tells Sherry why he left her: she was telling him how to live his life. NJ admits that he is now doing what Sherry wanted him to do anyway. After NJ and Sherry share their anger with one another, they start to talk about when they first started to date. They are happy as they talk about that time.
A-Sherry and NJ stay at a hotel in separate rooms. At night, Sherry comes to NJ’s room. She tells NJ that they should get divorces and start over as a couple. NJ tells her that she is tired and doesn’t really mean it. NJ tells Sherry that he understands her better than anyone. Sherry accuses NJ of being scared.
The next day, the two of them return to the first hotel, where NJ will have his meeting with Ota. NJ takes Sherry to her room. After Sherry closes the door, NJ knocks. When she opens, he says to her, “I’ve never loved anyone else.” Sherry nods and closes the door. She cries alone in her hotel room. NJ said this to show her that he loves her, but how he says it makes it seem as if he is being deliberately cruel.
NJ has his dinner with Ota. Ota talks about wanting to be a magician. He shows NJ a card trick, but he says it is not a card trick, but he just “knows where every card is.” Ota tells NJ that he is just a regular person, but NJ’s company “wants a magician”. He will understand if the company doesn’t sign him, but he’s happy to work with NJ. He tells NJ, “You are a good man.”
NJ gets a call the next morning. The company’s patron has signed with Ato, a rip-off programmer in Taiwan, because Ato is a woman with large breasts. NJ is disgusted that the company will not sign Ota. NJ doesn’t see Ota or Sherry again. Ota seems to know that the company wouldn’t sign, and Sherry knows that it’s best not to see NJ again.
NJ returns home exhausted. He passes out in the living room. Ting-Ting puts him to bed and takes care of him.
After Fatty leaves Ting-Ting, he starts to see Lili again. Fatty and Lili don’t spend time with Ting-Ting anymore. Lili says, “Hi” to Ting-Ting as she is going to see Fatty once, but she does this to be mean to Ting-Ting.
Later, Ting-Ting tells Fatty that the three of them can still be friends. Fatty yells at her, telling her that she lives in a fantasy world and that she doesn’t understand life. Ting-Ting walks away as Fatty yells at her to leave him alone. She is very hurt.
A-Di lies about the jade. He says he found it, not Yun-Yun. He pays back NJ. The company lost money because Ato’s work was bad, but the patron still is giving the company money. NJ says that he doesn’t want to work there anymore. During this conversation, Yang-Yang gives A-Di a “back of the head” picture, and NJ starts to understand what Yang-Yang’s pictures mean.
Later we find out that Fatty is upset over Lili’s relationship with her English teacher. Fatty was waiting for the English teacher when Ting-Ting talked to him. Late in the night, Fatty stabs the English teacher to death outside of the apartment complex. Ting-Ting is in her grandmother’s room, asking her why she won’t wake up. Yang-Yang hears the murder. No one else noticed it, though.
The police make Ting-Ting leave school the next day to ask her to tell them what she knows about Fatty. Fatty has been arrested for the murder. The movie shows a video game-format recreation of Fatty murdering the teacher.
Ting-Ting comes home from the police station because she doesn’t want to go back to school. Her grandmother is awake. She smiles at Ting-Ting, but she doesn’t speak. Ting-Ting puts her head on her grandmother’s lap. She tells her grandmother that life seems to have changed so much. She asks her grandmother if she has noticed a change from before she had her stroke. She tells her grandmother that she is so tired, but now she can rest because grandmother forgives her. Grandmother gives Ting-Ting an origami butterfly.
Ting-Ting wakes up in her bed. She has the butterfly with her. She goes to the hall to see that her grandmother has died. The grandmother died around the time Ting-Ting returned home. Min-Min returns home from the religious retreat. Ting-Ting comforts her. (Before, when Min-Min was leaving for the religious retreat, Ting-Ting did not embrace her or say goodbye.) Ting-Ting finds that her plant has started to bloom.
NJ comforts Min-Min as well. He also tells her that he “had a chance to relive his past.” He confesses to Min-Min that his life would not have been different. Min-Min says that she felt like her mother at the religious retreat: she couldn’t talk, and the religious people kept telling her the same things.
Yang-Yang comes home. He sees that Grandmother has died. He goes to him room and starts to write in a notebook.
At the funeral, Min-Min cries in front of her mother’s memorial. A-Di's trouble-making friend Migo also cries loudly in front of the memorial. Some time later, Yang-Yang asks Min-Min if he can talk to grandmother. Yang-Yang opens his notebook and reads a speech to his grandmother.
S.
Yi Yi
--It is A-Di’s wedding day. His wife, Xiao Yan, is very pregnant.
Yun-Yun, A-Di’s ex-girlfriend, comes to the wedding to make a scene. She apologizes to A-Di’s mother for not marrying A-Di.
A-Di’s mother (“Grandmother”) decides she is sick and doesn’t want to stay for the wedding. A-Di’s mother is also Min-Min’s mother. Min-Min’s husband, NJ, and their daughter, Ting-Ting, take Grandmother home. Ting-Ting meets the new neighbor girl, Lili. Ting-Ting is supposed to take out the trash, but she forgets about some of the trash because she is watching Lili talk with her boyfriend Fatty.
Yang-Yang, the youngest son of NJ and Min-Min, is sad at the wedding because the girls make fun of him. NJ takes him to McDonald’s. When they come back to the wedding, NJ runs into his ex-girlfriend, A-Sherry, as A-Sherry comes out of the elevator. Sherry tells him she lives in America. She gives NJ her card, then leaves. She comes back to ask NJ why he left her and tell him that she’s never gotten over him. NJ still hasn’t said anything. NJ’s coworker and Sherry’s classmate comes out of the elevator and diffuses the situation.
The family comes home late from the wedding. A neighbor tells Min-Min that her mother has had a stroke. The family rushes to the hospital.
“Grandmother” is in a coma. She returns home. Yang-Yang doesn’t know what to say to her. A-Di lies to her about being successful when it comes time to talk to her. Ting Ting believes it is her fault that Grandma had the stroke because she didn’t take down the trash. She tells grandma, “If you forgive me, wake up. I can’t sleep until you do.” Her class project, a plant, still hasn’t bloomed, and she falls asleep in class because guilt keeps her awake at night.
Yang-Yang brings a balloon to school. One of the older girls thinks it is a condom. The Dean yells at Yang-Yang even after he finds out that it is only a balloon. The Dean seems to like to have a lot of older female students around him.
NJ and his partners (including the former classmate who sees A-Sherry and some other friends and classmates) are trying to revive their failing computer company. The spokesman for their main source of funding accepts their idea of hiring the Japanese videogame designer Ota.
The movie connects a sonogram for A-Di’s wife to Ota’s speech about video games. Ota believes games are like children, but games still tend to be fighting and killing games because people do not understand themselves. NJ likes Ota’s ideas, but his company wants to think about it more before signing him. They make NJ have dinner with Ota. NJ is upset that business is about lying and “pretending to be nice.” Ota is a little weird, but he seems to know who he is.
Lili and Ting-Ting are making a healthy meal. Ting-Ting is sad that her dad cannot have dinner with them. Lili’s mom brings a new boyfriend to the apartment. Lili suddenly tells her mom that she and Ting-Ting are going to the movies. Ting-Ting is confused. Lili wants to leave because she is uncomfortable with her mother’s promiscuity.
Instead of going to the movies, Ting-Ting and Lili go to see Fatty at the music store at which Fatty works. Fatty promises to meet them at a coffee shop. Ting-Ting goes home, and it seems Lili is stood up. She yells at some boys (including one returning from military service), who yell back.
Ota and NJ have dinner together. Ota gives NJ a speech about how people should try new things because, after all, everything is new, every day is new. Ota understands if the company doesn’t want to sign him. The two of them talk a lot about music. After the dinner, NJ calls Sherry and leaves a message in Taiwanese on her answering machine. He feared that her "hard life" in the past was his fault, and he tells her that he's happy that she has a good life now. He also begins the speech saying that he wouldn't have been able to talk if she had answered the phone.
Min-Min is very upset because she feels her life is empty. She can only tell her mom the same boring things every day. NJ tries to comfort her, but he doesn’t do a very good job: he just closes the door and says he can have the nurse read the paper to Min-Min’s mom. Min-Min decides that she needs to go to a spiritual retreat to heal.
Yang-Yang talks to his dad about how people can’t know each other, and he talks about how people can only know “half”. Yang-Yang starts to take pictures of mosquitoes. He develops pictures during school, and he gets in trouble with the girls and the dean. The dean makes fun of his pictures.
Fatty asks Ting-Ting to give Lili a message. Lili is kissing the military man she yelled at the other night. She hates her mom’s promiscuity, but she seems to be imitating it. Lili acts casually when Ting-Ting gives her the letter.
The spiritual leader of the place that Min-Min went to comes to visit NJ. NJ figures that the leader wants money, so he gives it to him. NJ says to the leader that the retreat isn’t for him. (NJ has an interesting attitude toward religion. He tells Grandmother that talking to her while she's in a coma is like praying: he's not sure if he's talking to anyone, and he's not sure if he's worthy of being listened to by the gods or the grandmother).
A-Di gets thrown out of his house by Xiao Yan. He ends up at his ex-girlfriend’s (Yun-Yun) house. He watches pornograpy in his ex-girlfriend's bed. The money his ex-girlfriend gave him has been stolen by A-Di’s friend. They go to the friend’s house to find that it has been abandoned. Yun-Yun finds some expensive jade, but A-Di thinks it is worthless and throws it to the ground.
Yang-Yang and his friends throw a water balloon onto the dean. Yang-Yang hides in a video room. A girl comes in, and Yang-Yang finds himself fascinated with her.
Ting-Ting has tea with Fatty. When Ting-Ting comes home, she witnesses Lili in the midst of discovering that Lili’s mother and English teacher are having sex. (At first, Ting-Ting thought Lili was upset because Ting-Ting had tea with Fatty.)
A-Di and Xiao Yan’s baby is born. The baby has a bad horoscope, so they don’t name him right away. A-Di cries while watching a video of the baby on a monitor next to Xiao Yan's bed (which visually recalls him watching pornography in Yun-Yun's bed). At the baby party, Yun-Yun shows up uninvited, and her presence leads to tension and eventually a fight. Xiao Yan’s friends threaten A-Di, and A-Di’s friends argue that Yun-Yun deserves to be at the party.
NJ drives A-Di home from the disastrous baby party ("baby shower" in English, although a baby shower is usually before a baby is born and attended only by women). A-Di tells NJ that he “helped out” Yun-Yun when he stayed with her after Xiao Yan threw him out of the house, and NJ can only laugh at him.
NJ takes A-Di home, but he doesn’t want to stay. It’s an amazing house. We see that A-Di is very lucky even though he is vain and stupid. A-Di seems upset, and it seems he tries to commit suicide. Xiao Yan comes home the next morning to find A-Di naked in the bathroom. It seems he might be dead, but he isn’t. Likely A-Di tried to commit suicide by leaving the gas on in the bathroom. Since A-Di cannot do anything right, his suicide attempt fails. A-Di acts as if it were just an accident. Crying on A-Di's lap, Xiao Yan is very upset, and she promises not to be angry with him any more.
Ting-Ting tells Fatty that she won’t give Lili notes for him anymore, but Fatty claims that he likes her now ("This [letter] is for you."). Eventually, they go on a few dates. (Before the first big date, we see Lili’s English teacher walk out of Lili’s apartment awkwardly. Then we see Lili’s mom coming home. It seems Lili might be having an affair with her English teacher.) Fatty tells Ting-Ting her uncle’s theory that movies allow us to live “many lives.” We can experience things that we will never do, “like murder,” when we watch movies.
On a later date, Fatty tells Ting-Ting that he loves only her. (Earlier, Lili confronts Ting-Ting about her relationship with Fatty. Ting-Ting says that she and Fatty are “just friends.”) Ting-Ting and Fatty go to a concert featuring the instrument that Lili plays. Fatty tells Ting-Ting that he loves only her, and they kiss. They go to a love hotel, but Fatty says, “This is wrong” and runs away.
Yang-Yang sees that the girl he likes is a swimmer. He starts to practice holding his breath in the sink at home so that he can become a good swimmer too. Yang-Yang starts to take pictures of the back of people’s heads so that they can see what they can’t see. Yang-Yang jumps into the pool after practicing his breathing. It seems he can’t swim. He is alone. We are worried that he drowned, but he didn’t.
NJ is told to go to Japan to sign Ota. The company has a very successful patron who is a womanizer. He is keen to help them work with Ota.
A-Sherry calls NJ. She says she will fly to Japan to see him. Ota lets NJ and Sherry spend time together before NJ and Ota have a business meeting. NJ and Sherry tour Tokyo together. They hold hands like a boyfriend and girlfriend. NJ and Sherry’s trip to Tokyo parallels Ting-Ting’s first major date with Fatty (holding hands, etc.). Later (after Ting-Ting’s date is over), NJ and Sherry go to a park in Tokyo. Sherry tells NJ about what she did after NJ left her. She tells him how angry she is. NJ tells Sherry why he left her: she was telling him how to live his life. NJ admits that he is now doing what Sherry wanted him to do anyway. After NJ and Sherry share their anger with one another, they start to talk about when they first started to date. They are happy as they talk about that time.
A-Sherry and NJ stay at a hotel in separate rooms. At night, Sherry comes to NJ’s room. She tells NJ that they should get divorces and start over as a couple. NJ tells her that she is tired and doesn’t really mean it. NJ tells Sherry that he understands her better than anyone. Sherry accuses NJ of being scared.
The next day, the two of them return to the first hotel, where NJ will have his meeting with Ota. NJ takes Sherry to her room. After Sherry closes the door, NJ knocks. When she opens, he says to her, “I’ve never loved anyone else.” Sherry nods and closes the door. She cries alone in her hotel room. NJ said this to show her that he loves her, but how he says it makes it seem as if he is being deliberately cruel.
NJ has his dinner with Ota. Ota talks about wanting to be a magician. He shows NJ a card trick, but he says it is not a card trick, but he just “knows where every card is.” Ota tells NJ that he is just a regular person, but NJ’s company “wants a magician”. He will understand if the company doesn’t sign him, but he’s happy to work with NJ. He tells NJ, “You are a good man.”
NJ gets a call the next morning. The company’s patron has signed with Ato, a rip-off programmer in Taiwan, because Ato is a woman with large breasts. NJ is disgusted that the company will not sign Ota. NJ doesn’t see Ota or Sherry again. Ota seems to know that the company wouldn’t sign, and Sherry knows that it’s best not to see NJ again.
NJ returns home exhausted. He passes out in the living room. Ting-Ting puts him to bed and takes care of him.
After Fatty leaves Ting-Ting, he starts to see Lili again. Fatty and Lili don’t spend time with Ting-Ting anymore. Lili says, “Hi” to Ting-Ting as she is going to see Fatty once, but she does this to be mean to Ting-Ting.
Later, Ting-Ting tells Fatty that the three of them can still be friends. Fatty yells at her, telling her that she lives in a fantasy world and that she doesn’t understand life. Ting-Ting walks away as Fatty yells at her to leave him alone. She is very hurt.
A-Di lies about the jade. He says he found it, not Yun-Yun. He pays back NJ. The company lost money because Ato’s work was bad, but the patron still is giving the company money. NJ says that he doesn’t want to work there anymore. During this conversation, Yang-Yang gives A-Di a “back of the head” picture, and NJ starts to understand what Yang-Yang’s pictures mean.
Later we find out that Fatty is upset over Lili’s relationship with her English teacher. Fatty was waiting for the English teacher when Ting-Ting talked to him. Late in the night, Fatty stabs the English teacher to death outside of the apartment complex. Ting-Ting is in her grandmother’s room, asking her why she won’t wake up. Yang-Yang hears the murder. No one else noticed it, though.
The police make Ting-Ting leave school the next day to ask her to tell them what she knows about Fatty. Fatty has been arrested for the murder. The movie shows a video game-format recreation of Fatty murdering the teacher.
Ting-Ting comes home from the police station because she doesn’t want to go back to school. Her grandmother is awake. She smiles at Ting-Ting, but she doesn’t speak. Ting-Ting puts her head on her grandmother’s lap. She tells her grandmother that life seems to have changed so much. She asks her grandmother if she has noticed a change from before she had her stroke. She tells her grandmother that she is so tired, but now she can rest because grandmother forgives her. Grandmother gives Ting-Ting an origami butterfly.
Ting-Ting wakes up in her bed. She has the butterfly with her. She goes to the hall to see that her grandmother has died. The grandmother died around the time Ting-Ting returned home. Min-Min returns home from the religious retreat. Ting-Ting comforts her. (Before, when Min-Min was leaving for the religious retreat, Ting-Ting did not embrace her or say goodbye.) Ting-Ting finds that her plant has started to bloom.
NJ comforts Min-Min as well. He also tells her that he “had a chance to relive his past.” He confesses to Min-Min that his life would not have been different. Min-Min says that she felt like her mother at the religious retreat: she couldn’t talk, and the religious people kept telling her the same things.
Yang-Yang comes home. He sees that Grandmother has died. He goes to him room and starts to write in a notebook.
At the funeral, Min-Min cries in front of her mother’s memorial. A-Di's trouble-making friend Migo also cries loudly in front of the memorial. Some time later, Yang-Yang asks Min-Min if he can talk to grandmother. Yang-Yang opens his notebook and reads a speech to his grandmother.
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