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THE WEDDING BANQUET

囍宴

By Ang LEE

CENTRAL MOTION PICTURE CORPORATION - as PROD

Drama - Completed 1993

- Year of production
- 1993
- Genres
- Drama
- Countries
- TAIWAN
- Languages
- MANDARIN
- Duration
- 102 mn
- Director(s)
- Ang LEE
- Writer(s)
- May CHIN, Mitchell LICHTENSTEIN, Winston CHAO
- Cast
- Chin MAY, Chao WINSTON, Mitchell LICHTENSTEIN, Lung SIHUNG, Ah-Leh GUA
- ISAN
- 0000-0000-0448-0000-L-0000-0000-B
- Synopsis
- Wai-Tung Gao has made it in America – a sizeable4 bank account from shrewd real estate investments, a beautiful brownstone in Manhattan which he shares with his white lover Simon, citizenship, and ten thousand miles between himself and his parents in Taiwan, parents who are wondering why he hasn’t yet gotten married.
  Simon senses the underlying tension that nags at Wai-Tung each time he has to deal with his elderly parents’ pleas from abroad, and proposes a solution: marry Wei-Wei, a cute young Chinese artist who’s been illegally subletting one of Wei-Tung’s Soho apartments. She’s behind in her rent, more than a little flirtatious with Wai-Tung and desperate for a green card. A deal is struck, and Wei-Wei moves in while she and Wai-Tung study each other for the inevitable immigration interviews.
  Little did Wai-Tung think that his parents would get it into their heads to fly to America for the wedding…
  With the arrival of Mr. and Mrs. Gao, what began as a white lie turns into a full-fledged farce. And soon what was to have been a simple City Hall ceremony is transformed into an enormous wedding banquet. With the house turned into a crowded hive of activity, each character begins to change: Wei-Wei begins to like her new in-laws; Simon, posing as a roommate who will soon be moving out, finds himself relegated to the background; and Wai-Tung, cornered in on all sides, grows more and more tense.
  The banquet turns out to be a wildly drunken affair, culminating in an all-night drinking party in the newlyweds’ hotel room where Wei-Wei makes a drunken lunge for her cute husband,…
  …and soon discovers that she’s pregnant. Wai-Tung is appalled. As is Simon, who takes the news to be one more sign of a failing relationship and considers moving out. As the tension rises to a boiling point, Mr. Gao suffers a mild stroke. In a hospital corridor, Wai-Tung finally comes out to his mother, who makes him swear that he won’t let his father know the true story, which, she says, would kill him. For Mrs. Gao, the news is a terrible tragedy, but even worse is Wei-Wei’s determination to have an abortion and go back to China.
  But on the day the abortion is scheduled, old Mr. Gao lets Simon in on a little secret of his own…