User reviews

The central character of "The Wedding Banquet" looks sullen through almost the entire movie. He knits his brow and ponders as if there were something troubling him to no end. At the very outset, it's quite clear what that is. Wai-Tung is gay, and he hasn't told his Taiwanese parents. He's annoyed with his mother's unwelcome attempts to match him with someone, so she can have what she wants: a grandchild. But he's afraid to tell her or his father why he is not interested. His mixed emotions have no place to go; so they sit on his face, incomplete and unexpressed, except as unresolved anger, much of it at himself. And it's fun to watch as he goes through the motions of pleasing family and lover and acquaintances to take his mind off his troubles.

The script by director Ang Lee, and associates Neil Peng and James Schamus have written a crackerjack story full of things that never have hit the screen before. The wedding banquet itself is full of such insightful details about contemporary Chinese-American life and sentiment that there seems something accomplished that's new to the movies. When the wedding party invades the honeymoon suite, you feel like the writers have a firm grasp on the people they are presenting us, as if they know them, inside and out. I have seen five movies directed by Ang Lee, and this (and maybe his earlier "Pushing Hands") is the only one in which I felt he had a deep understanding of the characters, and for that matter, of human nature and human love.

Filial piety may not be a new thing for the Chinese, and maybe that is why this movie feels rooted, grounded. Wai-Tung who is a successful businessman and landlord commands respect among his colleagues, but when he's with his parents, he's still their little boy. You laugh as this grown man walks with his father, head bowed, keeping exact pace, two steps back, and you realize the secret of the older man's hold on his imitator. Wai-Tung loves his parents, and he knows what they expect. He's ashamed that he doesn't want to fulfill their dreams, that he wants a life of his own, that he didn't turn out as they hoped. But he also cares about his lover Simon, and you know what has drawn them together is that they care about other people. (Simon is a physical therapist who likes lecturing his clients; Wai-Tung tries to appear in charge, but he always seems to be taken advantage of by the people around him.) This concern for others is what draws us to Wai-Tung, and when his parents appear, you know exactly why he's going along with deceiving them.

Winston Chao is handsome and lithe, and he's good at playing a frazzled, bewildered, well-meaning lump. Yet he wouldn't be so likable, if it were not for the propinquity of Mitchell Lichtenstein who clearly has the expressiveness the movie needs. Although the movie comes dangerously close to being one about gay men in love who, in their most private moments, look like the most they do is shake hands, Lichtenstein ("Streamers") manages with the subtlest means to convey a sexual connection. The scene in which Simon presents a cell phone as a gift and carries on a conversation to test it affords Lichtenstein the chance to show what heat he can generate on the screen when he's called to do so. It makes evident how lucky a man Wai-Tung is, and why he'd allow himself to be emotionally torn for so long.

But the most compelling performances here come from Sihung Lung (who played the unwanted father-in-law in "Pushing Hands") and Ah Lei Gua as Mr. and Mrs. Gao. Lung conveys Old-World benevolence that pretty much dictates where this movie goes. He more than fills the shoes of the aging warrior, taking the last few steps that will make his life complete. He grants Mr. Gao a share of dignity his work here rightly deserves. Yet it is Ah Lei Gua who convinces me that she is fully in character. Whether she is bursting into tears over the shabbiness of the civil wedding, or trying to overlook her daughter-in-law's clumsiness in the kitchen, or keeping Simon at a distance when she learns his real position in her son's life, you sense an actress of the highest rank who knows intuitively the character she has been given to play.

With May Chin who, I hear, is very popular in Taiwan, and here carries herself with porcelain elegance. Her Wei-Wei is an enigma, a woman with a penchant for handsome gay men, and the movie is content with leaving her that way. You come away as uneasy about the arrangement she struck with Simon and Wai-Tung as Mrs. Gao is, who exits weeping. When Ang Lee slows down the camera at the end, as Mr. Gao raises his arms to be inspected at the airport gate, the director in spite of himself belies the thought that the old soldier has surrendered to a new enemy--the craziness and the self-indulgence of the next generation. The plangency of that last shot remains with you for a long time.

The Wedding Banquet is marketed as a comedy, but it is more than that. Closer in plot and style to Green Card than The Birdcage it examines the personal consequences of deceit. The comedy is there of course, but so is much tenderness and pain as a marriage of convenience between a gay man and a woman deportee unravels. Like Green Card which had similar plotlines, the "obvious" resolutions do not appear so likely as the film progresses which adds to its attractiveness.

I recommend it highly.

Ang Lee with infinite wisdom seems to be saving the best part of this film for last. Acceptance is the underlying theme of this movie, which I recently watched for the second time. I saw the film when it was originally released in 1993. At that time, it seemed to have been breaking ground for tolerance from the straight world toward gays, in general.

Ang Lee is one of the best film directors working these days. This is a small film in comparison to what came afterward. The story of how parents in a conservative society view their children that are "different" is always an interesting idea. Those same parents produced that child; the mere idea they will turn their backs to a son who is living openly as a gay man is a complex problem, at best.

Different cultures react differently, as is the case in this film. While the parents are not completely taken over by the way they discover their son has turned out to be, they go along with the flow, never condemning the son, his partner, or the young woman who is pretending to be, what she is not.

The acting is good in general, but it has to be the actor who plays the father, who ultimately wins one's heart. His culture goes back for centuries and he is won by his son's lover because he sees how kind, decent and honest he really is.

It's better never to judge, or so it seems that Ang Lee is telling us.

This film is about a gay Chinese man having to bow down to parental pressure and marry a woman.

IMDb lists this film as comedy. There are comedic scenes such as the post wedding party. Yes, the party is hardly an exaggeration, it is actually done according to the Chinese culture! However, I think The Wedding banquet is better be viewed as a drama. The plot of this film is probably the life story of many gay men of Chinese descent. It is simple, and yet truthful, realistic, touching and affecting.

The main character, Wai-Tung, faces enormous pressure to get married. However, he is actually in love with a Westerner called Andrew. The film fully portrays the pressure Wai-Tung faces because of parental and societal pressure. It also displays how preaches acceptance and tolerance. The ending is so touching, and even months after watching the film, I can still remember the ending.

This is an excellent film. For men who are in situations similar to Wai-Tung, The Wedding Banquet will resonate with them forever. Even if you are not in a similar situation, this film is so touching that it is a must watch!

Ang Lee already was a masterful director before his three triumphs Sense and Sensibility, The Ice Storm, and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (for which he was ROBBED of Oscars by the likes of Mel Gibson and Steven Soderburg). Maybe children might be a little young for this, but it is indeed a "family film" like no other. And the new "daughter-in-law" is hilarious (although you might think she goes too far in one important-to-the-plot scene). The funniest scene is the courthouse nuptials, and the banquet itself makes you wish you were there.

After ten years, this film still does not seem dated at all, which I thought it would. The only thing missing is a HOT love scene with Winston Chao and Mitchell Lichtenstein, who looks far younger than his age. I know if I was in that situation, I'd want to blow off some steam! The best part is the just before finale, the father has a great quiet scene with one of the other cast members. Have some tissues on hand for the ending.

It's best to own a copy of this film, that way you won't be tempted to watch it every time it comes on "Bravo". It's an absolute delight, one of the best of the decade, definitely in the Top 50 of best comedies of all time, at least.

The Wedding Banquet is a truly inspiring and cross-culturally challenging film. It touches on many issues/themes which have never been combined before in one movie: Taiwanese Americans vs. Chinese Americans, Asian American families, old school parents vs. younger generation(s), multi-racial couples, gay couples, gay Asian Americans, immigrants, pride, family values and love.

And… while I found the ending of this movie somewhat unrealistic (I'll let other viewers decide) I also found the film challenging and optimistic (which is where my realism takes over).

You should watch this movie if you are… Asian… gay… Asian AND gay… or simply want to learn something about another culture. You might be surprised!

Props to Ang Lee for creating a unique opportunity to look into two very distinct and different cultures at the same time: Asian American and gays in the early 90s.

An early Ang Lee film, he made this one year after his debut film, Pushing Hands, but had actually written it some six years before. Based on the true story of one of his friends in the first half of the film, Lee and co-writer/producer James Schamus take the story through a few smiles onto the screen.

Wai-tung (Winston Chao) is a gay Taiwanese landlord in New York with his boyfriend Simon (Mitchell Liechtenstein). Having not admitted his sexual orientation to his parents, he is pressured by them (and tradition) to get married and to have son to carry the Gao name. Meanwhile, Wei-wei (May Chin) is on the edge of poverty. An Chinese artist living in one of Wai-tung's derelict buildings, she is looking for a green card to avoid deportation. Noticing both situations, Simon suggests they marry out of convenience, but things go wrong when Wai-tung's parents come over to New York and a wedding banquet is held.

Although such a story today would have been regarded as a ordinary for a film plot, Lee's vision at the time it was made was fairly radical for certain sections of society at the time, particularly in conservative Taiwan. Lee pushed the boundaries, even including the first gay kiss scene to appear on Taiwan's screens.

Despite the ground-breaking story and the fact that I am watching it almost 12 years after it was made, I didn't feel that there was a sense of believability in the first half of the film. Characters were very 2D and lacked depth. There was a lot of missing chemistry on-screen, and for most of the first half, I did admit I was a little bored. The second half after the banquet takes place, though, was much better. As the characters are exposed and plots unfold, the story becomes more interesting and was much easier to watch.

However, one other gripe is the fact that the humour doesn't quite make its mark in the movie. There are plenty of opportunities to add the little smiles on peoples' faces, but the attempts to do so were fairly weak. The only time I let out a chuckle was in the City Hall wedding ceremony. Simply put, it doesn't match Ang's third film, Eat Drink Man Woman, in this respect.

Overall though, this is a watchable film, and you can easily see that Lee has developed his techniques quite a long way since his early films. The Wedding Banquet certainly demonstrates why people had faith in him and recognised his talent in the early days. One for a look back.

The Wedding Banquet was the first Ang Lee film that I watched. I remember I was about 10 or 11 years old when I watched it. At that time, I did not understand the movie at all. However, as I grow older, I watched it again and I realized what a masterpiece that Ang Lee had accomplished. Coming from the same background, as Taiwanese immigrant to the United States, I can certainly relate many of issues with the protagonist Wai-Tung. My parents are exactly like Wai-Tung's parents. They have high expectation of the son and carry on the family name is the most important thing. Ang Lee did a very good job on depicting the traditional father figure in Taiwanese society. My father, very much like Wai-Tung's, is a very serious person. To him everything has to be done straight and upright. My mother on the other hand is very sentimental. She would just cry like Wai-Tung's mother in the movie. Taiwanese mothers always care for their son so much that they literally do everything for their son, just like how Wai-Tung's mother sets up a blind date for him. My parents are so serious that sometimes if I joke about me liking a man they would get upset. Therefore, I really can understand how Wai-Tung has to hide his secret for such a long time in the movie.

I like how Ang Lee uses Wai-Tung to represent Taiwan; Wei-Wei to represent China, and Simon to represent the US. In the movie, there is one scene where Wei-Wei wears a red dress in the air port picking up Wai-Tung's parents, I just could not help myself but laugh at the expression that Wai-Tung's dad gives when he sees Wei-Wei. He must think her as another communist he fought in the Chinese civil war. Another fascinating thing about this movie is that I watched it again in my film study class and even the movie is in mandarin, my classmates seem to understand the messages and laugh about them. I guess it is the magic of the movie. It really can transcend time and languages. Overall, Wedding Banquet has became my all time favorite of all the Ang Lee films.

Asian gay man, living in New York with his lover, pretends to be both straight and engaged to appease his Old World parents, who travel from their homeland to attend their son's "wedding". Heterosexual viewers unaccustomed to gay-themed dramas may find this early Ang Lee film palatable. A fast-moving comedy-drama from Taiwan (in both Mandarin and English), it was seemingly made with the determination not to be offensive or controversial in the slightest--which, of course, is both pro and con. The well-acted film is certainly engaging yet rather routine, breaking no new ground (1993 wasn't soon enough to break some taboos?). Performances by the Asian players are fine, but big, bland American Mitchell Lichtenstein seems out of his element. A situation comedy with subtitles, "The Wedding Banquet" goes down smoothly to pacify skittish straights. One Oscar nomination: Best Foreign Language Film. **1/2 from ****

LONG before Brokeback Mountain, Ang Lee tread the very tempestuous waters of gay relationships, this one set in the contemporary US of the 1990s. The twist here is he incorporated the mores and issues that came within his own familiar setting; the traditional Chinese family, where the expectations are for the male heirs to marry and produce MORE male heirs for the legacy. The real beauty in this film is that behind the standard expectation of what one would expect in a traditional Chinese family, we get an insider's view and see the reality and humanity behind the characters, to the point we actually get drawn in and sympathize with them (without necessarily agreeing with them). Some of the actors were very visibly novices, yet the polish, script and overall production came off masterfully. Definitely worth watching, especially for anyone who enjoy's Ang Lee films.

Ang Lee's 'The Wedding Banquet' is a romantic comedy that deals with love, marriage, hidden sexuality, and tradition. Lee does an excellent job of addressing the concerns that each character has in their roles while also producing a picture that is both pleasant and compelling. By balancing comedy and drama, Lee creates a picture that pulsates with the sensation of real life. An added insight into a full-fledged Chinese wedding feast customs will undoubtedly fascinate the audience.

A gay couple Wei-Tung(Winston Chao) and Simon (Mitchell Lichtenstein) live together in NYC. Wei-Tung has parents who live in China and don't know he's gay and want him to get married. Simon and Wei-Tung persuade an unmarried artist Wei-Wei (May Chin) to have a marriage of convenience so she can get her green card and shut up his parents. Naturally his parents travel to NY to attend the wedding. Things go barreling out of control.

It's well-done, moves quickly and Ang Lee directed it well. However some of the acting is terrible and I HATE the ending which just seems to go out of its way to please the straight and gay audiences. A lot of people like this film so I'm in a minority but I didn't like it in 1993 and I still don't like it in 2023.

I really loved this film, I knew nothing about it before I saw it and so was really surprised.

It's a great example of modern day life and combines so many issues of today - sexuality, cross-cultural life, tradition/modernity etc. But it's not a "gay" film and it's not a "foreign" film, it mixes these elements really well into a very typically Hollywood story. But it is also able to use them to comment on social stereotypes and grouping, but without blatantly doing so.

The characters are all very likeable and I really felt sympathy for the positions they were all in - a young man (Wai-tung) trying to please both his parents and his partner Simon, an illegal immigrant (Wei-wei) who wants to stay in America, and Wai-tung's boyfriend Simon trying his best to be accommodating and patient though feeling pushed out of the family.

The messages of this film about tolerance and honesty are not pushed in your face. It's a very easygoing film that is very funny in some places and sad in others. There are some subtitles and some is in English because we, the audience, must learn to integrate our own way of life with others, just like the people in the film.

All the way through the story, I had the notion that somehow it couldn't be right that they were playing such a cruel game. But then, in the end, I realized who the cruel character was… Watch it, and you'll see what I mean.

This is a very sensitive and sensible movie about a gay Taiwanese in New York who marries a woman only in order to make his parents happy. Of course, as in all comedies of this kind, events get out of control. But still, as this is also something of a culture clash movie, there is more than just romance routine. The story is told in a particularly attractive way, always convincing and never boring. The permanent switching between English and Cantonese, listening and reading (the subtitles), kept me concentrating. Although the actors, especially Winston Chao, seemed to me somewhat unmotivated, Ang Lee has again proven his incredible talent and great variety.

A gay guy living in New York fakes a marriage with his tenant to satisfy his parents from Taiwan, who are in a visit to attend his arranged marriage. Dealing with homosexuality and family values, it's a delightful drama from China I've adored in years, perhaps after "Yi Yi." Developing from a slight storyline, the film has a lot to offer in the way including a clash between family and one's personal preference. The film fully amuses and is full of emotions along the packages of surprises. Brilliantly directed by Ang Lee, the film stands an epitome of a Chinese wedding on the screen along the theme of homosexuality portrayed so well before he directed "Brokeback Mountain."

Rating: 3 stars out of 4.

You could describe this movie as a romantic comedy. And I do agree with one of the previous reviewers, the romantic part isn't sappy and the comedic part isn't slapstick either. It has the right balance to it! And as an absurd plot progresses (you have to watch this), and by absurd I mean more like abstruse or something like that, the (main) characters remain down to earth. The actors are well casted and carry the plot, while playing it "straight" (not everyone is playing "straight", as you will see if you watch the picture, but that's something you'll realise the first minutes into the film).

I haven't watched the film for quite some time now, but if you like a real (offbeat) comedy, than this is for you! :o) It's a great movie and a testament how great a director Ang Lee is!

Wei-Tung is from Taiwan but has been living in the US for a decade with his lover, Simon. Wei's family does not know he's gay and his mother is constantly hoping he'll find the right girl and settle down with her. However, when Wei's father becomes ill, he is torn--part of him wants to just tell them he's gay but he's also afraid the shock will kill his dad. So, he and Simon and a woman, Wei-Wei, come up with a strange plan--to arrange for a marriage in name only with Wei-Wei. Since the parents only plan on being in the US a short time, they can go back to their respective lives after the sham wedding. Plus, the wedding will allow Wei-Wei to remain in the United States--so it's a win-win situation, right? Well, maybe not. Things get far more complicated and the parents end up staying longer--though this is NOT the most serious of the complications. For more on this, watch the film.

Ang Lee has crafted an enjoyable film with "The Wedding Banquet", though I wasn't thoroughly in love with the film. Much of it is because the film goes from comedy to ultra-serious drama repeatedly. Also, the film did seem a bit difficult to believe. But, these are not huge problems and the movie is well made and worth seeing.

To satisfy his nagging parents, a gay landlord (Winston Chao) and a female tenant (May Chin) agree to a marriage of convenience, but his parents arrive to visit and things get out of hand.

Elisabetta Marino argued that "Lee's creative process and his final choice of two languages, Mandarin Chinese and English, for the movie are in themselves symptomatic of his wish to reach a peaceful coexistence between apparently irreconcilable cultures, without conferring the leading role on either of them." This is interesting, because I found myself not really relying on the subtitles, but seeing the humanity and emotion transcending the language, essentially making this more than a "foreign" film.

Marino says the film suggests that there can be a reconciliation between Eastern and western cultures, unlike Amy Tan's novels where the cultural differences are portrayed as irreconcilable. I can certainly see that. At the very least, the gay couple is an Asian-Caucasian mix, and there seems nothing unusual about it. We also see how seamlessly a woman who cannot speak English is married by a justice of the peace... assimilation works!

Sometimes we obtain what we desire, but not the happiness and contentment we crave. This is the case for Wai-Tung and Wei-Wei. The odd couple, a woman seeking a green card and a gay man in an open relationship seeking a tax credit and his pushy traditional Chinese parents off his back, plan a marriage of convenience. At their wacky New York wedding banquet, a happy-go-lucky and openly erotic mish mash of Chinese and American traditions, Wei-Wei and Wai-Tung discover their souls crave something less tangible than what they first desired.

One thing I love about Ang Lee films are the withering looks. Piercing eyes that could bust a bag of bricks at a glance. You'll see a few such glances here. They send shivers down your spine. The looks are Lee's unique and enthralling brand. They are peppered throughout his films, but sparingly. Another characteristic of Lee, one of my favorite directors, is depth. Do not make the mistake of judging this film by its cheesy cover. Lee has plenty of surprises and emotional shocks up his sleeves. The characters and themes come at you from a variety of perspectives and opposites; young and old, men and women, straight and otherwise, Chinese and American, and more. Another thing Lee is a master at is passion. His characters manage to melt your heart no matter who they are, kind or cruel. Enjoy each scene as it comes, for even at the start of his career, Lee is mesmerizing and magical. Despite the passage of 25 years since this film first emerged and my unabashed awe of Lee, it was my first time seeing this film.