The Wedding Banquet

The Wedding Banquet is a 1993 romantic comedy film directed, produced and co-written by Ang Lee. The story concerns a gay Taiwanese immigrant man (played by Winston Chao, in his film debut) who marries a mainland Chinese woman (May Chin) to placate his parents (Gua Ah-leh and Lung Sihung) and get her a green card. His plan backfires when his parents arrive in the United States to plan his wedding banquet and he has to hide the truth of his gay partner (Mitchell Lichtenstein). It was a co-production of Lee's Good Machine production company, and the Taiwanese Central Motion Picture Corporation. Lee’s second feature film and his first to get a theatrical release in the United States, The Wedding Banquet premiered at the 43rd Berlin International Film Festival, where it won the Golden Bear. It was both a critical and commercial success, becoming the most profitable film of 1993 and won five Golden Horse Awards, including Best Film and Best Director. It received Oscar and Golden Globe nominations for Best Foreign-Language Film, as well as six Independent Spirit Award nominations. Together with Pushing Hands (1991) and Eat Drink Man Woman (1994), all showing the Confucian family at risk, and all starring the Taiwanese actor Lung Sihung, The Wedding Banquet forms what has been called Lee's "Father Knows Best" trilogy. Plot Gao Wai-Tung is a gay Taiwanese immigrant in Manhattan, happily living with his partner Simon. He has not come out to his traditionally-minded parents who live back in Taiwan, and as he’s in his late-20s, they’ve become eager to see him get married and have a child in order to continue the family line. When his parents hire a dating service, Wai-Tung and Simon stall for time by inventing numerous impossible demands. They demand an opera singer and add that she must be 5'9", have two PhDs, and speak five languages. To their shock, the service actually locates a 5'8" Chinese woman who meets all but one of their qualifiers (having only a single PhD instead of two). She is very gracious when Wai-Tung explains his dilemma, as she too is hiding a relationship (with a white man).