Maybe the best film by Edward Yang, one of the greatest directors of all time, "Yi Yi"--a three-hour meditation on what it means to be alive and surrounded by other living people--is by turns elegiac, poignant, and hilarious but always beautiful and insightful. The high-definition digital transfer used in the The Criterion Collection DVD does the film's breathtaking photography credit and is a vast improvement over the transfer from the previous version, released by Fox Lorber.

Edward Yang won the Best Director award at Cannes in 2000 for his work on this film. He was one of the leading figures of the Taiwanese New Wave (along with Hou Hsiao-hsien and Tsai Ming-liang), considered by many critics to be one of the most important movements in film history. "Yi Yi" was Yang's last film and a fitting capstone to a career that ended much too soon with his untimely death in June 2007. He was 59.

I saw this film in a Chinese Cinema class I was taking in college, and although I didn't write the title of "Yi Yi, one of the greatest movies of all time" (that was written by another user), I won't argue with that person because this really is a great film.

It may be a bit slow-paced for some folks, but for those of you used to Asian cinema that reveals itself slowly, like a flower gently opening from bud to bloom, this is a treasure. It touches on one of my most favourite topics: the alienation of people, especially loved ones--in this case, family members.

I want to own this film, as it's utterly amazing, and I recommend watching it whenever you get the chance.