It centers on the struggles of an engineer, NJ (played by Wu Nien-jen), and three generations of his middle-class Taiwanese family in Taipei.

At the wedding of Min-Min's younger brother A-Di, NJ runs into his ex-girlfriend Sherry, who gives him her number before leaving.

A-Di is allowed to return upon the birth of his child but a fight breaks out at the baby shower when Yun-Yun shows up uninvited.

Unwilling to speak to his grandmother because he feels like she cannot hear him, Yang-Yang starts taking photographs.

To punish him for leaving school to buy film, Yang-Yang is forced to face a wall while his teacher circulates his photographs among the other students.

They travel to another city and check into a hotel, but when NJ insists on separate rooms, Sherry berates him and breaks down.

They return to Tokyo and check back into their respective rooms; before leaving, NJ tells Sherry that he has never loved anyone else.

The next day, NJ is informed by his colleague that they have secured a deal with another client and he is to return to Taipei immediately.

[6] Kenneth Turan wrote in the Los Angeles Times: "It's a delicate film but a strong one, graced with the ability to see life whole, the grief hidden in happiness as well as the humor inherent in sadness".

[7] J. Hoberman of The Village Voice called Yi Yi a "lucid, elegant, nuanced, humorous melodrama that's never nearly as sentimental as it might have been" and praised Yang's direction, which he remarked "orchestrates a soap opera season's worth of family crises with virtuoso discretion".

[8] The New Yorker critic David Denby concluded: "By degrees, with incredible calm and patience, the narrative takes hold, and by the end nearly every shot seems momentous".

Yi Yi also won the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival's Netpac Award ("For the perceptive and sensitive portrayal of a generation and cultural gap in Taiwan and the painful choices to be made in these difficult times") and the Vancouver International Film Festival's Chief Dan George Humanitarian Award.

It was named one of the best movies of 2001 by many prominent publications and critics, including The New York Times, Newsweek, USA Today, the Village Voice, Film Comment, the Chicago Reader, and the author Susan Sontag, among others.

Specifically, Yi Yi was named "Best Film of the Year" (2000) by the following film critics and writers: A. O. Scott of The New York Times, Susan Sontag writing for Artforum, Michael Atkinson of the Village Voice, Steven Rosen of The Denver Post, John Anderson, Jan Stuart and Gene Seymour writing for Newsday, and Stephen Garrett as well as Nicole Keeter of Time Out New York.

Peng has a small cameo in the film as a concert cellist, playing Beethoven's Cello sonata No.