YI YI 2000 EDWARD YANG With the lively contemporary family drama Yi Yi, Taiwanese superdirector Edward Yang hits his full stride, breezing by his Cannes competition while carrying the audience comfortably for three hours. Bracketed by a wedding and a funeral, Yi Yi's picture of family life is remarkably full, distinctly rendering the points of view of a young boy, a teenaged girl, their parents, and various other relatives and friends. The boy, Yang-Yang (Jonathan Chang), carries around a camera and takes shots of familiar surroundings from all angles in order to overcome the vexing problem of not being able to see himself from behind. That the boy's name repeats the director's surname underscores the fact that this problem of capturing the big picture of multiple perspective is Yang's as well, and he succeeds admirably. The teenager Ting-Ting (Kelly Lee) is equally as empathetic as her younger brother, while their father N. J. (Nianzhen Wu), skillfully shoulders the adult subplots of adultery, in-law management, and business deals. N. J.'s rehashing of old times with a past flame skirts but avoids sentimentality, while his corporate wooing of Japanese entrepreneur Ota (Issey Ogata) results in a suprisingly involving picture of the romance of business. Yi Yi does dampen here and there from excessive crying on screen, but doesn't approach the tear volume of Wayne Wang's The Joy Luck Club. Tempering and deepening the film's emotional punch throughout are extraordinary visuals of Taipei's urban thicket of concrete and light--Yang may be the best narrative manipulator of reflected images since Orson Welles.