The Wedding Banquet (1993)

I am only giving this movie a 1 for the great cast, though I can't imagine what any of them were thinking. This movie was horrible

an ambitious but ultimately ineffective debut endeavor.

It is both painfully honest and laugh-out-loud funny at the same time.

The first must-see film of the year.

The story of The Wedding Banquet (1993) is an engaging cross-cultural movie about Wai-Tung, his five year secret lover Simon, and the demands of marriage placed on Wai-Tung by his parents. In the typical "living a lie" plot device fashion, Wai-Tung stages some larger than life lies by marrying one of his tenants, Wei-Wei, who just happens to be in need a of a green card. By arranging this whirlwind marriage, Wai-Tung hopes to avoid being set up by his parents, but ends up making matters worse through his web of lies. His father's ailing health factor's into the difficulty of the situation as he fears that news of his true identity would be his father's end. The lie perpetuates, things get sticky through this dramedy romance. I enjoyed this film as it exemplified the Asian American cross cultural lifestyle. The writers were Ang Lee, Neil Pang, and James Shamus. The strengths in the writing are that the film was tasteful and respectful and still managed to be comedic. The film was directed by Ang Lee and one of its greatest strengths is that it was a $750,000 film that looked like it had a larger budget. There was nothing terribly fancy about the editing, it had a very natural feel to it. The cinematography was the only thing that I felt could have been improved in this film. There were many parts of the film where the lighting was scant or not really well adjusted in post. All in all, I enjoyed the film and would recommend it to a friend.

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!

The very definition of 'nice': an Asian man, living in New York with his male 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 China (in both Chinese 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 tolerable, 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. Think of this as a situation comedy with subtitles. **1/2 from ****

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.