The Wedding Banquet

喜宴 (The Wedding Banquet)
Directed by	Ang Lee
Produced by	Ang Lee Ted Hope James Schamus
Written by	Ang Lee Neil Peng James Schamus
Starring	Winston Chao May Chin Ah Lei Gua Sihung Lung Mitchell Lichtenstein
Music by	Mader
Cinematography	Lin Jong
Editing by	Tim Squyres
Distributed by	Samuel Goldwyn Company
Release date(s)	4 August 1993 (U.S.) 19 November 1993 (Canada) 9 December 1993 (Australia)
Running time	106 minutes
Language	Mandarin Chinese, English

The Wedding Banquet (Chinese: 喜宴; pinyin: Xǐyàn; Wade–Giles: Hsi yen) is a 1993 film about a gay Taiwanese immigrant man who marries a mainland Chinese woman to placate his parents and get her a green card. His plan backfires when his parents arrive in the United States to plan his wedding banquet.

The film was directed by Ang Lee and stars Winston Chao, May Chin, Ah Lei Gua, Sihung Lung and Mitchell Lichtenstein. The Wedding Banquet is the first of three movies that Ang Lee would make about gay characters; the second is Brokeback Mountain and the third being Taking Woodstock. Lee himself makes a cameo appearance in the film as a wedding guest attending the banquet. The film is a co-production between Taiwan and the United States.

Plot summary

Wai-Tung Gao (高伟同 Gāo Wěitóng, Winston Chao) and Simon (Mitchell Lichtenstein) are a happy gay couple living in Manhattan. Wai-Tung is in his late 20s, so his Taiwanese parents (Sihung Lung and Ah-Leh Gua) are eager to see him get married and have a child. The early part of the movie is madcap comedy. When Wai-Tung's parents hire a dating service he and Simon stall for time by inventing impossible demands. Chinese opera singers are always men, so they demand an opera singer and add that she must be very tall, must have two PhD's and should speak five languages. The service actually locates a 1.75 m (5'9") Chinese woman who sings Western opera, speaks five languages and has a single PhD. She is very gracious when Wai-Tung explains his dilemma, as she, too, is hiding a relationship (with a Caucasian man). At Simon's insistence, Wai-Tung decides to get married to one of his tenants, Wei-Wei (葳葳 Wēiwēi, May Chin), a penniless artist from mainland China in need of a green card. Besides helping out Wei-Wei, Simon and Wai-Tung hope that this will placate Wai-Tung's parents.

Mr. and Mrs. Gao decide to fly in from Taiwan, bringing US$30,000 to hold a magnificent wedding ceremony for their son. Wai-Tung dares not tell his parents the true situation, because his father has just recovered from a stroke; they go through with the wedding. However, the heartbreak his mother experiences at the courthouse wedding prepares the story for a shift to drama. The only way to atone for the disgraceful wedding is a magnificent wedding banquet. After the banquet, Wei-Wei seduces the drunken Wai-tung, and becomes pregnant. Simon is extremely upset when he finds out, and his relationship with Wai-Tung begins to deteriorate.

In a moment of anger, after a fight with both Simon and Wei-Wei, Wai-Tung tells his mother the truth. She is shocked and insists that he not tell his father. The perceptive Mr. Gao sees more than he is letting on; he secretly tells Simon that he knows about their relationship, and, appreciating the considerable sacrifices he made for his biological son, takes Simon as his son as well. Simon accepts the Hongbao from Wai-Tung's father, a symbolic admission of their relationship, but Mr. Gao makes him promise not to tell anyone; without everyone trying to lie to him, he points out, he'd never have gotten a grandchild.

After making an appointment to have an abortion, Wei-Wei decides to keep the baby, and asks Simon to stay together with Wai-Tung and be the baby's other father. In the final parting scene, as Wai-Tung's parents prepare to fly home, Mrs. Gao has clearly forged an emotional bond to daughter-in-law Wei-Wei. Mr. Gao accepts Simon and warmly shakes his hand. In the end, both derive some happiness from the situation, and they walk off to board the aircraft, leaving the unconventional family to sort itself out.

Awards

The film was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film at 66th Academy Awards and also nominated for Golden Globe Award for Best Foreign Language Film. It won the Golden Space Needle of the Seattle International Film Festival and the Golden Bear at the 43rd Berlin International Film Festival.

Adaptations

In December 1993, a novelization of the film, titled Wedding Banquet (ウェディングバンケット, Wedingu Banketto) and published in Japan, was written by Yūji Konno (今野 雄二, Konno Yūji). (ISBN 4-8387-0508-5)

In 2003, a musical staging was performed at the Village Theatre. It was directed by John Tillinger, choreographed by Sergio Trujillo, with music by Woody Pak and book and lyrics by Brian Yorkey. Yorkey, Village's associate artistic director, said this of the production, "The film succeeds because of Ang Lee's delicate poetry, and there is no way we can replicate that or translate that into a musical. So we took the story a step further. Whereas the film ends very ambiguously, our musical goes on past where the film ends". The show starred Welly Yang as Wai Tung.

See also

• Mixed-orientation marriage
• Lavender marriage

External links

• The Wedding Banquet at the Internet Movie Database
•  喜宴 (The Wedding Banquet)  at AllRovi
• The Wedding Banquet at Box Office Mojo
• The Wedding Banquet at Rotten Tomatoes
• Suntimes
• Literature, Arts and Medicine Database, NYU