Yang is a part of the family.
Husband and wife Jake and Kyra originally purchased Yang, a “cultural technosapien” android that resembles an 18-year-old Chinese boy, in order to connect their adopted Chinese daughter Mika with her heritage. Coming preprogrammed with thousands of fun facts about Chinese culture, Yang is the perfect robot to help Jake and Kyra provide Mika with company while they’re away at their jobs.
But over the years since, Yang has become much more to them than just a machine. To Mika, Yang is her older brother, taking care of her, walking her to the fridge to get water at night and comforting her when bullies pick on her at school. To Jake and Kyra, Yang is like Mika—an adopted son, even partaking in the weekly family of four dance competition.
So, when Yang shuts down one day and won’t turn back on, they’re not sure how to feel. One store says that it can recycle Yang and give the family a $1000 credit toward a replacement technosapien. But it seems wrong to do so.
But is it so wrong? After all, when it comes down to it, Yang is just a machine, no different than a super-advanced laptop. Is it appropriate to mourn? Is it appropriate to feel regret?
Is it even appropriate to say that Yang was a member of the family if he is just a computer with a human face?
Mika is not Jake and Kyra’s biological child. And at one point in the movie, she questions whether she’s truly part of the family. Yang comforts her by relating her situation to a grove of trees with grafted branches. He shows her that the branch may initially look as if it’s just “taped on.” But eventually, that grafted-in branch becomes one with the tree. So even though Mika comes from a different family biologically, she is a true part of her adopted family.
That beautiful analogy will be familiar to many Christians, given Paul’s similar symbolism in in Romans 11:11-24.
Through Yang’s “death,” Jake and Kyra learn more about caring for their daughter. Though Yang was originally just a way for them to teach Mika about her Chinese heritage, he had since become a kind nanny to her, even as Jake and Kyra had become more distant from her.
So when Yang malfunctions, Kyra realizes how they hadn’t been as involved with their daughter as they should have been. So she commissions herself and Jake to consider how they might take better care of Mika, especially in light of the fact that Yang may never reboot.
Yang is a friendly technosapien who cares for his family; comforts Mika; and has deep, intellectual conversations with Jake and Kyra. This greatly contrasts with another character who is pegged as a racist conspiracy theorist who demeans entire groups of people through his prejudices and fears.
This character is a bona fide, DNA-bearing human being. That said, he’s also characterized as an emotionally detached brute while Yang appears as a compassionate, loving friend. It’s never explicitly explored in depth, but the movie suggests personhood and humanity may be based more on our interactions with one another than our possession of flesh and bone. (That subtle assertion, however, runs counter to what Christians believe about humanity being created in God’s image, as we see in Genesis 1:26-27.)
Kyra is seen in her bra as she and Jake change into their dancing outfits. Jake is seen shirtless in a towel after taking a shower. Yang is frequently seen shirtless while shut off as people root through his chest cavity to determine his system issues. Jake kisses Kyra’s hand and holds her close at one point.
A background newspaper clipping mentions how U.S. and Chinese forces clashed in the Pacific Ocean, and how the war lasted for 60 years. A man slams a wrench down onto a table in frustration. Kyra tells Jake that Mica punched another student. A memorial for a woman who died in a car crash is seen.
We glimpse Yang with his chest cut open. He is a robot who only looks like a human, so there is no blood. However, there is a red mechanism inside the “wound.”
We hear four instances of the s-word, and there are three abuses of God’s name.
A racist sign reads “There ain’t no yellow in the red, white and blue.” Another piece of propaganda related to a war between the U.S. and China says “Yellow peril.”
Jake consumes a yellow liquid which seems to be a medicated sleep aid of some sort.
A man says “foreign models” like Yang may be filled with spyware. An exhibit called “Under the Skin” shows see-through art of the human skeleton and various bodily systems, and some of the sculptures may be creepy to children. A girl references how people treat her poorly because she’s a human clone. Another girl attempts to sneak into Jake and Kyra’s house while they’re away.
After Yang wrestles with the question of what it means to be human. With their robotic helper Yang shut down with little chance of him ever being rebooted again, Jake and Kyra spend their time reflecting on the memories they had built with the “technosapien” android.
By that point, Yang has lived with them for many years, and they’ve built strong bonds with him. But when it comes down to it, Yang is a machine. And that begs the question of how much grief is really appropriate if his systems can’t be restored. Is it like crying over a broken Roomba, or is Yang more than that?
The film is based on a short story by Alexander Weinstein called “Saying Goodbye to Yang,” from his collection Children of the New World. According to the author, the idea for his story came to him after his computer crashed, taking much of his work with it. Because he had owned the machine for years, he began to cry, and he realized that he was emotionally connected to his electronics.
In After Yang, Jake goes through a similar journey, albeit spending most of his time in the denial stage of grief as he takes Yang him for multiple diagnostic checks. For every member of Jake’s family, Yang is not just the faithful machine whose motor has finally given out—he’s as close to them as family, at least enough for them to bump themselves into the “family of four” dancing competition. And they’re not sure if they’re ready to sign up for “family of three.”
Though the film is rated PG, viewers should expect the occasional s-word or misuse of God’s name. We also see Jake shirtless in a towel and Kyra in her bra in a scene.
But apart from those relatively few content concerns and the constant melancholy tone of the film, we encounter a unique story exploring grief and family. Because even if Yang wasn’t actually a human being, he sure felt like one to the family who had come to love him.
Kennedy Unthank studied journalism at the University of Missouri. He knew he wanted to write for a living when he won a contest for “best fantasy story” while in the 4th grade. What he didn’t know at the time, however, was that he was the only person to submit a story. Regardless, the seed was planted. Kennedy collects and plays board games in his free time, and he loves to talk about biblical apologetics. He’s also an avid cook. He thinks the ending of Lost “wasn’t that bad.”
