'After Yang' Review: Kogonada's Latest Asks Big Questions and Offers Few Answers

Warning: This article contains mild spoilers for “After Yang."

“After Yang” has all the trappings of a modern sci-fi film: stunning cinematography, an experimental premise, and a beautifully austere score (in this case composed by the legendary composer Ryuichi Sakamoto). Its setting is futuristic, but the technology that the characters interact with is not particularly exciting; we’ve seen similar holographic glasses and humanoid robots in last year’s “Swan Song” and A24’s own “Ex Machina.” What is undeniably new about “After Yang,” though, is its ultimate undertaking: By building a world in which families may buy synthetic, “Chinese” humanoid robots meant to connect their adopted Chinese children to their heritage, the film approaches the question of whether culture can be programmed.

At times, this theme is tackled with painful blatancy. At one point, a prominent character asks in reference to Yang, one such robot or “techno,” “What makes someone Asian?” The remainder of “After Yang” lords the question over the audience, as if leading up to an answer. Despite some poignant metaphors and standalone tearjerker moments, though, the question is left sorely underexplored, and the film’s impact is dampened by this ultimate failure to rise to its occasion.

“After Yang” centers on a family living in a futuristic setting, possibly the United States — minimal other clues are provided. The mother, Kyra, is Black; the father, Jake, is white; and their daughter, Mika, is Chinese. And then there’s Yang — the family’s “techno,” who is somewhat considered Mika’s brother, though the fact of the parents’ ownership of him and their overdependence on him to guide Mika through everyday life casts him as more of a servile figure. When Yang malfunctions and begins to decompose during a nationwide family dance battle, Jake turns to several specialists for help, some sketchier than others. One sketchy specialist has flyers reading both “No yellow in the red, white, and blue,” and “YELLOW PERIL” on a corkboard in his breakroom. (Whether this literature is intended to situate the film’s futuristic setting within the modern-day movement against AAPI hate is not immediately evident, but it is immediately confusing.) The specialist, named Russ, grants Jake access to a gadget loaded with short clips of Yang’s memories. Jake’s findings cause him to rethink his relationships: with Yang, with his daughter, and with the uber-advanced technology so intertwined with his conception of humanity.

The incredibly specific premise of “After Yang” is refreshing, regardless of the confusion it may cause its audience. (In this future America, do considerably more couples adopt Chinese children? If not, what is the market for “technos” like Yang?) However, the film’s themes of displacement and ethnic belonging — sorely under- or misrepresented themes in film today — are not adequately addressed. In short, the film bites off more than it can chew. The tragedy of Yang’s undying subservience to the family, even amid their neglect to affirm him as an individual, is left to the viewer to bemoan. But it would be easier for the viewer to mourn this loss of individuality if Yang were given more screen time. Despite some flashbacks, Yang’s character growth is stunted by the fact of his deadness; he is a robot corpse for three-quarters of the film.

Kogonada, the director of “After Yang,” also directed the 2017 film “Columbus,” at once a story of intellectual love and an ode to the architecture of the American Midwest. Kogonada’s directorial tendency to decenter plot in favor of more spontaneous, nonlinear filmmaking does not succeed in “After Yang” the way it did in “Columbus.” “After Yang” would have benefitted from additional backstory as well as a more concrete form of world-building — which “Columbus,” backlit by predictable American suburbia (while itself not a predictable film), didn’t quite need.

Yang’s character shines in its fullest form in various flashbacks, after Mika’s dependence on him over her overworked parents is established. Yang applies a repository of fun facts to questions in Mika’s life, and even uses the metaphor of grafted fruit trees to assuage Mika’s complicated thoughts on familial belonging. Jake ultimately sees these moments through Yang’s eyes — the chip in Yang’s body seems to have stored his prominent memories as rewatchable clips. More tree imagery appears when a love interest of Yang’s reads him an excerpt of Maya Angelou’s poem, “When Great Trees Fall.” Had the reference been more prominent, rather than relegated to a hazy montage, it would have struck harder. Instead, any pathos stemming from the inclusion of the poem is Angelou’s own doing.

Earlier in another flashback (which, in an innovative and effective strategy, staggers slightly varying visuals and dialogue to mirror the subjectivity of each person’s memory), Yang and Jake chat over tea and question a line from a documentary in which a German man claims that an authentic tea can transport its drinker to a different place and time. The two down their cups and ultimately disagree with the German man. The message is clear: The notion that technology can replace cultural experience is a myth. This tea metaphor is fitting; the premise of “After Yang” hints toward immense possibility, but its execution ultimately leaves little taste in the mouth.