THE WEDDING BANQUET (1993) | Dir: Ang Lee | Before he ever climbed the treacherous Brokeback Mountain, Ang Lee made a funny, heartfelt, romantic comedy called THE WEDDING BANQUET, which boasts one of the best tag lines ever on a poster: A Little Deception at the Reception. The main copy line was pretty great, too, for that matter. (Everyone wants to kiss the bride, except the groom.) It’s the story of a gay couple — Simon and Wei-Tung, who have a comfortable life in New York until Wei’s parents announce they’ll be visiting the city and expect to help find a woman for their son to marry. Wei and Simon enlist the help of a female artist Wei-Wei, one of Wei’s tenants, to pretend to be the girlfriend and shenanigans ensue. It could be a Nora Ephron or Preston Sturges film, only gay. I saw this film a couple of times in the theater, I was so excited by its depiction of an ordinary gay couple who happened to live in the neighborhood where I was living at the time - the West Village, a very gay ‘hood. Its low-budget limitations is part of its charm and it contains of my favorite last images of any film I have ever seen. While I came for the queer story, what I took away from the film were the performances of the actors who played the parents — Sihung Lung and Gua Aleh), both legendary Taiwanese actors. Their story resonated so much for a young gay man like myself, who had not yet come out to his family, but hoped for support and acceptance, but recognized the familiar fears expressed by Wei-Tung. The way the parents’ story unfolds is humane and tender.
