Garçon d'honneur

Hsi yen (The Wedding Banquet) is an enjoyable movie to watch. It does not matter if you are acquainted with Ang Lee's work. The film is about a woman wants to stay in the country gets married to a gay man. The man tries to hide being gay when his parents visit from out of the country. All of the performances are excellent in this picture.

Ang Lee already was a masterful director before his three triumphs Sense and Sensibility, The Ice Storm, and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (for which he was ROBBED of Oscars by the likes of Mel Gibson and Steven Soderburg). Maybe children might be a little young for this, but it is indeed a "family film" like no other. And the new "daughter-in-law" is hilarious (although you might think she goes too far in one important-to-the-plot scene). The funniest scene is the courthouse nuptials, and the banquet itself makes you wish you were there.

After ten years, this film still does not seem dated at all, which I thought it would. The only thing missing is a HOT love scene with Winston Chao and Mitchell Lichtenstein, who looks far younger than his age. I know if I was in that situation, I'd want to blow off some steam! The best part is the just before finale, the father has a great quiet scene with one of the other cast members. Have some tissues on hand for the ending.

It's best to own a copy of this film, that way you won't be tempted to watch it every time it comes on "Bravo". It's an absolute delight, one of the best of the decade, definitely in the Top 50 of best comedies of all time, at least.

I really loved this film, I knew nothing about it before I saw it and so was really surprised.

It's a great example of modern day life and combines so many issues of today - sexuality, cross-cultural life, tradition/modernity etc. But it's not a "gay" film and it's not a "foreign" film, it mixes these elements really well into a very typically Hollywood story. But it is also able to use them to comment on social stereotypes and grouping, but without blatantly doing so.

The characters are all very likeable and I really felt sympathy for the positions they were all in - a young man (Wai-tung) trying to please both his parents and his partner Simon, an illegal immigrant (Wei-wei) who wants to stay in America, and Wai-tung's boyfriend Simon trying his best to be accommodating and patient though feeling pushed out of the family.

The messages of this film about tolerance and honesty are not pushed in your face. It's a very easygoing film that is very funny in some places and sad in others. There are some subtitles and some is in English because we, the audience, must learn to integrate our own way of life with others, just like the people in the film.

I suppose The Wedding Banquet could be considered a romantic comedy. It is so in the best senses of both words: romantic without being sappy, and comedic without being ridiculous. The characters are vibrant and interesting without being cliches. Ang Lee has not created a great movie, simply a perfect one.

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.