Ahead of the UK premiere of Andrew Ahn’s reimagining of Ang Lee’s The Wedding Banquet (1993) at BFI Flare this week, here’s an extract from my chapter on The Wedding Banquet in In the Scene: Ang Lee (Aurora Metro).
I was the first to write a book on Ang Lee back in 2001 for Pocket Essentials. In 2020, this book was substantially revised for Aurora Metro and published as In the Scene: Ang Lee, updated to cover his entire filmography—from his earliest shorts to his most recent release, Gemini Man (2019).
You can read more about Ang Lee and Me in my 2023 blog post, and via the following podcasts. Chichester Cinema at New Park's podcast, Chichester CineFile (I’m about 33 minutes in, chatting for about 10 minutes) and on The Cinematologists, where hosts Dario and Neil, talk to me and Francesco Signorello, about Ang Lee.
The Wedding Banquet/Xiyan/Shi Yen (1993)
Crew: Director: Ang Lee. Screenplay: Ang Lee, Neil Peng and James Schamus. Editing: Tim Squyres. Cinematography: Jong Lin. Costume Design: Michael Clancy. Production Design: Steve Rosenweig. Original Music: Mader. Producers: Ted Hope, Dolly Hall, Li-Kong Hsu, Feng-Chyt Jiang, Ang Lee and James Schamus.
Cast: Sihung Lung (Mr Gao), Ah-Leh Gua (Mrs Gao) Winston Chao (Wai-Tung), Mitchell Lichtenstein (Simon), May Chin (Wei Wei),
Story:
Wai-Tung, a successful landlord, and Simon, a physiotherapist, are a happy gay couple in Manhattan. Their tenant, Wei Wei, a struggling artist from Shanghai, needs a green card. Meanwhile, Wai-Tung’s traditional Taiwanese parents pressure him to marry and have a child. To appease them he agrees to a fake marriage with Wei Wei.
Things spiral when his parents insist on a grand wedding banquet, leading to a drunken night where Wai-Tung and Wei Wei sleep together. She becomes pregnant, sparking tension between Simon and Wai-Tung. Eventually, secrets unfold: Mr. Gao knew about Simon all along, Wei Wei decides to keep the baby, and Simon agrees to co-parent. Mrs. Gao remains hopeful Wai-Tung will "change," and the family settles into a delicate balance of love, secrecy, and compromise.
Background:
Although written in 1987, the film languished in Lee’s growing pile of rejected scripts. With a gay relationship at the film’s centre it became impossible to find willing investors in Taiwan. It was only after the success of Pushing Hands that Taiwan’s Central Motion Picture Corporation once again agreed to pick up the tab, on the understanding that it was filmed in six weeks.
The film went on to be the most financially successful return on investment of 1993. Costing less than a $1 million to make, it grossed $23.6 million at the box office i.e. a 2,300% return on its capital. $4 million of the box office take was from Taiwan, a remarkable achievement considering the film’s subject matter.
The film’s premise, a cross cultural gay couple hiding the nature of their relationship when the Chinese ‘in-laws’ hit town, was based on the true life experience of a Washington DC friend of the film’s co-writer, Neil Peng. Like Wai-Tung and Simon all evidence of a gay lifestyle was eradicated and a heterosexual one created in its place. The film is dedicated to this couple: “To N. Yu and his long-time companion B. Geyer”.
The film was marketed well in the US, which led to its extraordinary success both commercially and critically - how many other independent films give away promotional fortune cookies in cinema foyers. It was given an R rating in the US because of the language used to describe the “fucking” going on in the next room, but apparently there was no concern about the same word being used repeatedly by Simon as an adjective when he discovers that Wei Wei is pregnant. The film got an equivalent to a PG13 in Taiwan and was considered a mainstream film there which was surprising given that the film was set in the US and not dependent on Chinese themes and issues per se, but universal ones.
On the surface The Wedding Banquet may appear a light frothy comedy of manners in the tradition of French farce, with people creeping from bedroom to bedroom during the night. But at the film’s core there is the dual concerns of Asian American identity in New York and of homosexuality both in an American and Chinese context. Lee believes that the success of this film both domestically and internationally opened a doorway in Taiwan for more homosexual friendly films. This was considered a much-needed move as in Chinese society where representation of homosexuality in film, theatre, literature was marginalised.
Everyone is being deceived or being deceitful. Each character is trying to do what they feel is best. Each characters’ motive for their duplicitness is morally sound and are therefore portrayed with dignity, there are no racial and sexual stereotypes at play here - no screaming queens or bigoted parents.
The use of the third person viewpoint allows each character to be equally presented. This is not Wai-Tung’s story or Wei Wei’s story it is the story of five people living in one house lying to one another in order to please one another.
Many things left unspoken, there are hidden implications in the subtlest of glances, and this is a film about a family unit struggling against the norm. The shoot was easy to control, there are few cast members, and the film is predominantly set in the claustrophobic atmosphere of Simon’s small house although the two key scenes take place outside the family environment: the wedding at City Hall and the subsequent restaurant meal and the wedding banquet itself.
To a Western audience the obnoxious antics at the wedding banquet may seem a little over the top. But Lee insists that many of the events shown were based on the crew’s experiences of attending such events – many suggestions were discarded as being too unbelievable.
The film is really a film with three marriages. It opens with Wai-Tung’s and Simon’s domestic bliss, the fake marriage between Wei Wei and Wai-Tung forms the centre around which all other events spiral. The film ends with the real wedding – a mother and two fathers starting a family.
The film has at its core the interwoven relationship between five people and the characterisation of all five characters transforms the film to a sophisticated comedy drama rather than a bedroom farce. May Chin (Wei Wei) is a major pop star in Taiwan. In the film’s opening scenes in her apartment, she is an attractive and nonchalantly sexy bohemian artist. Hot and sweaty, she oozes sexuality in way that is uninhibiting for any woman, let alone an Asian woman. Initially Wei Wei is liberated by the freedom she purchases by marrying a gay man for a green card, but she is ultimately trapped into a ‘traditional’ marriage. Married only for the heir she reproduces to a husband who will never love her the way she secretly hoped he would.
Want to read more about The Wedding Banquet and Ang Lee's other films? Then snap up a copy of In the Scene: Ang Lee.
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