On the heels of critic Joel Siegel's passing after a long battle with colon cancer, the great Taiwanese director Edward Yang died of the same affliction over the weekend. He was only 59-years-old and had spent the past seven years quietly fighting the illness, but finally succumbed to it in his Beverly Hills home, leaving behind his wife (concert pianist Kaili Peng) and a six-year-old son.
Yang has been celebrated by cineastes and festival-goers for years, but it wasn't until his 2000 masterpiece Yi Yi that his work found a broader arthouse appreciation here in the states. A sprawling look at family life in modern Taipei, the film movingly captures individuals separated by longing, alienation, and a growing generation gap. Our own Keith Phipps reviewed the Criterion DVD last year—a huge step up in quality, incidentally, from the notoriously awful Winstar release a few years back—and there's little doubt the film will top many decade-best lists in a few years. If one good thing can come of Yang's death, perhaps it will be a renewed attention to work, including gems like the brilliant 1991 epic A Brighter Summer Day, which follows a group of teenage boys through the perilous world of '50s Taipei under Nationalist rule.
Yang was slated to direct an animated feature called The Wind with Jackie Chan, but the project was cut short due to his condition.
He will be missed.