Dig in! This “funny and poignant comedy of manners” (The New York Times), directed and co-written by Oscar(r) nominee* Ang Lee (Sense and Sensibility), is an absolutely delicious feast! Winner of the Berlin Film Festival’s prestigious Golden Bear, The Wedding Banquet is “top-notch comedy” (Leonard Maltin)! Successful New Yorker Wai Tung and his partner Simonare blissfully happy, except for one thing: Wai Tung’s conservative Taiwanese parents are determined he find a nice girl to marry! To please themand get a tax breakhe arranges a sham marriage to Wei Wei, a sexy go-getter in need of a green card. But when his family swoops down for the extravaganza, Wai Tung would do well to remember that at a traditional Chinese wedding banquet, sexual repression takes the night off!This 1993 international hit by Ang Lee is a funny and poignant story of a gay, Taiwanese-American man who goes to some lengths to fool his visiting family that he’s actually straight. The results are far more complicated and entertaining than anyone could have guessed. The film seems all the more rich now since Lee has become a major Hollywood director: that same sensitivity and mild bemusement he brought to such stories of manners as Sense and Sensibility and The Ice Storm in recent years are in full bloom in this earlier work. –Tom Keogh
Buy “The Wedding Banquet” For Only $20.98
March 8, 2010
#1
This is a cute movie, full of chuckles. The lead actors in the movie, Winston Chao and some White guy, are awful. Fortunately the direction and surrounding cast are good. A solid script somehow manages to navigate the intersection of traditional-normative Chinese culture and normative American gay-male culture without grossly insulting either. The film never really explores the two cultures or takes high risks, but hey–it’s a comedy, and this one is good for some laughs.
March 8, 2010
#2
Funny,Dramatic,a nice love story, a perfect coming out gift for Gay’s parents. An aproach to the Chinese Family Traditions in the modern world.
March 8, 2010
#3
about being gay, coming out etc etc …. This is a great movie about relationships, love of family, maturity etc etc and it just so happens that the main character is gay.
The fact that he is gay and how he copes with trying to keep that secrest from his parents who live in Taiwan is the beauty of this film and the story. Ther are no hidden messages or points of view the director is trying to push except for telling a great story ….
Our young architect hero living with his partner is being pressured into getting married to PLEASE produce an offspring for the retired army general father. He finally is forced to agree with his mother to consider an arranged marriage and she send the forms to him where he describes the kind of woman he would marry. OK, so he lists that he is looking for a tall, blong haired blue eyed Chinese girl that is a nuclear physicist with a Phd and also a classical opera singer …. Now ay .. right
Wrong … next thing a girl shows up exactly what he ordered …. BUT … shes in love with someone else and doesnt want to married off either …
After rejecting the girl, our hero decides he has to do something and they fake a wedding with one of his Latin renters … the plan being the parents come .. they fake the wedding .. the parents go and his and his lovers life can get back to normal ….
I don’t want to give away the story but, as mentioned the film is great great great …Ang Lee the director is incredible. One tiny little note there are some kissing scenes, that were pretty shocking to me a non gay, so be preared. Those scenes though were not gratuitous and were very necessary to show the comittment the two gay lovers had to each other and show their happy and very unquestioned love for each other ….
This is an unforgettable film ….
March 8, 2010
#4
This movie explores the Chinese parents that are old fashion. It follows a young gay man trying to hide from him parents and avoid the traditional marriage. It’s funny and moving as he fakes a wedding to hide his lover, Simon. I believe that you will like this movie.
March 8, 2010
#5
This is definitely a “must see” for everyone who is interested in the dynamics of family life. If Jane Austen was a gay Chinese man, this is the story she would have written.