Marriage of inconvenience

The Wedding Banquet

Directed by Ang Lee

Brighton Bay, Kino cinemas, Melbourne

Reviewed by Wendy Robertson

The Wedding Banquet deals with a mixture of issues, including the everyday pressures of family and tradition that are faced by gay couples.

Wai-Tung Gao (Winston Chao) is a successful real estate dealer, a naturalised US citizen, living with his lover, Simon (Mitchell Lichtenstein), in Manhattan. His parents back in Taiwan want him to marry and give them a grandchild. In order to hide his sexuality, Wai-Tung decides on a marriage of convenience.

A marriage is arranged with Wei-Wei (May Chin), a young Chinese artist, a tenant of one of his apartments, who is living in the US illegally and desperately needs a green card (to allow residency).

The marriage of convenience turns into a farce when Wai-Tung's parents arrive for the nuptials. Soon what was to have been a simple City Hall ceremony is transformed into a massive wedding banquet.

The central theme of the film is the difficulties faced by many gays and lesbians when seeking parental acceptance of their sexuality. The film shows Wai-Tung's parents partially coming to terms with their son's gay relationship, and raises questions about their marriage, which was an arranged one.

Director Ang Lee has dealt very well with complex issues of sexuality and cultural tradition.

From GLW issue 125