Yi Yi Summary

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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.