Despite the elements that force us to suspend our disbelief, the success of a fantasy and science fiction project is often measured by the quality of its narrative. In that regard, “After Yang,” the second cinematic outing from “Columbus” director Kogonada, knocks the ball out of the park. It is a story of mourning, the complexity of sensitivity and life beyond death. Even if the film has a relatively short duration (just over 1h30), it develops its plot with the greatest care. The camera lingers in almost every scene, telegraphing the emotions of the characters. Here’s everything you need to know about the ending of “After Yang.” FRONT SPOILERS.
After Yang Plot Synopsis
“After Yang” has one of the most organic interpretations of the future ever portrayed in movies and TV shows. This is not necessarily utopian. While the film is almost exclusively centered on a family, we can glean that certain problems of our time have managed to endure and even evolve. The science in ‘After Yang’ also seems like an evolved version of what we have today. Society became even more dependent on technology and human cloning was legalized. Families have robotic companions that often stay with them for life and more. Politically correct terms have also emerged to refer to these artificial entities. They are called techno-sapiens, implying that a significant amount of research has been done on their memories and intelligence.
“After Yang” revolves around a family of four. Jake (Colin Farrell) runs a teahouse, while his wife/partner, Kyra (Jodie Turner-Smith), appears to be a corporate employee. Their adopted daughter, Mika (Malea Emma Tjandrawidjaja), is of Chinese descent, so they asked Yang (Justin H. Min), a cultural techno-sapien, to educate her about her roots. During a virtual mass dance competition, Yang stops working. It was developed by a company called Brothers & Sisters Incorporated, but since Jake didn’t buy it new, he can’t have it serviced by its makers, at least not without paying an exorbitant amount of money. He has a warranty from the store he bought Yang from but finds it no longer exists.
Jake then takes Yang to a repair shop affiliated with Brothers & Sisters. They charge him a considerable amount of money to simply run diagnostics and inform him that Yang’s main processor has been damaged. They add that there is not much they can do except turn Yang into a virtual assistant or retrain him completely. Yang became a member of his family – a son. As a result, Jake desperately tries to find a way to make it active again. Following a neighbor’s advice, Jake visits a cheap repairman and conspiracy theorist named Russ, who finds something inside Yang that he claims is a surveillance camera. Jake then takes the device to a techno-sapien museum, where an expert, Cleo, reveals that it is actually Yang’s memory bank, where he had stored all the memories he deemed important. While going through Yang’s memories, Jake discovers that there was someone else in Yang’s life beyond their family – a mysterious young woman whose name is later revealed to be Ada (Haley Lu Richardson) .
After the end of the Yang: what happens to the Yang? Does he go back to Jake, Kyra and Mika?
As a film, “After Yang” is as much about grief as it is about acceptance. Jake’s attempt to bring Yang back isn’t driven solely by his concerns for Mika, who grows increasingly hostile after Yang ceases to function. He really grew to love techno-sapien as a son. This becomes especially evident when Jake accesses the memories Yang created with his family. The depth of these scenes cannot be overstated. Jake, and later Kyra, experience the precious memories Yang has of them, and thus relive those precious moments they shared with someone who is now gone.
There’s a long scene halfway through the movie where Jake and Yang talk about tea. Jake admits he never liked the taste. What originally attracted him was the experience, the smell and the refined culture associated with it. In response, Yang says he wishes he had a real connection to tea and not just endless stories about it. The scene underscores the bond these two characters shared, establishing that it was no less impactful than the relationship between a parent and their human children.
Similar themes are explored when Kyra puts on the glasses and accesses Yang’s memory archive. She is taken back to when she and Yang talked about her butterfly collection. The conversation progresses and soon becomes about mortality.
After discovering the extent of Yang’s memories, Jake and Kyra decide to preserve them and let Cleo do her research. However, they refuse to let it be exhibited in the museum. In the closing scenes, Mika tells her father that she doesn’t want to lose Yang, and Jake responds by saying neither does he. This seems to contradict what Jake and Kyra decided earlier. But again, death and the afterlife are thematically crucial to the film’s narrative. Yang is gone, but he doesn’t need to be replaced. Her family can relive them whenever they want. And it is the continuation of life itself. It does not disappear into nothingness. A part of him stays with Jake, Kyra and Mika – his third family.
Who is the woman in Yang’s Alpha memory? Why do she and Ada look so alike?
From Yang’s previous owner, Jake learns that even she is not Jake’s original owner. It is revealed that Yang stored her memories with different families in different archives in her memory bank. The memories he created with Jake, Kyra, and Mika are stored in the Gamma Archive, while those he created with the Second Family are stored in the Beta Archive. The latter is the smallest as Yang stayed with them for about a week. The Alpha Archive contains the lifetime of memories he created with his original family. He helped a single mother raise her child and continued to be with her when she went to live in a nursing home.
There he met the woman’s niece, whose name was also Ada. They grew closer and something deep developed between them. However, Ada died in a car accident. Jake’s time Ada is the original Ada’s clone and great-niece. Yang never really spoke to the current Ada about the connection they shared, but their relationship affirms some of the film’s central themes. his existence, however briefly, defied grief, death and mortality.
Read more: Where was After Yang filmed?