Wizard-8 If you have been reading my reviews, you will probably know that normally a movie like "The Wedding Banquet" is not my normal cup of tea. But I sat down today to watch it after my Taiwanese girlfriend suggested that I give it a look. And I am very glad that I did. It was a comedy that was a refreshing change after seeing so many strident and in-your-face comedies from Hollywood. The tone here is much more laid back and gentle, and this easygoing attitude helps to make the movie captivating. The characters are much more realistic, and practically every character who makes an appearance is sympathetic and relatable, no matter what your ethnicity or sexual preference might be. As for the humor, it always has a ring of real life to it, and while you may not laugh out loud most of the time, the humor will give you a big smile on your face. This movie is a real sleeper, and I highly recommend you seek it out.

gavin6942 To satisfy his nagging parents, a gay landlord (Winston Chao) and a female tenant (May Chin) agree to a marriage of convenience, but his parents arrive to visit and things get out of hand.Elisabetta Marino argued that "Lee's creative process and his final choice of two languages, Mandarin Chinese and English, for the movie are in themselves symptomatic of his wish to reach a peaceful coexistence between apparently irreconcilable cultures, without conferring the leading role on either of them." This is interesting, because I found myself not really relying on the subtitles, but seeing the humanity and emotion transcending the language, essentially making this more than a "foreign" film.Marino says the film suggests that there can be a reconciliation between Eastern and western cultures, unlike Amy Tan's novels where the cultural differences are portrayed as irreconcilable. I can certainly see that. At the very least, the gay couple is an Asian-Caucasian mix, and there seems nothing unusual about it. We also see how seamlessly a woman who cannot speak English is married by a justice of the peace... assimilation works!

charlieperry I rate this movie in my top 5 movies of all time. It's one of the few movies to make me cry and I'm not even gay!It's so refreshing to see a film which celebrates the unconditional love of parents for their children. It's a rarely treated subject in film. Juno is another film which treats this topic beautifully. So many films deal with the intolerance of parents towards wayward children when I'd argue that more often than not parents will stick by their kids whatever. Why do so many films try to tell us otherwise?As someone who is approaching the age where mothers are really pressuring us to settle down and produce some grandchildren I can really relate to the lead character as well. As I said in the title to this post the twist in the tale of this story is so subtle and unexpected and at the same time so powerful. It left me with a renewed faith in humanity.Like the Big Country, which I think contains some really profound and important lessons about what it is to be a man, I feel that this film contains some equally important messages about being a parent.

coc_ky I loved this film - have seen it twice. I totally disagree with one of the messages that it was unsympathetic to the gay community. I think it portrays the gay person as a complete person, with the difficult challenges but also the comical madness a person who lives a 'minority' lifestyle (gay and in an cross cultural and racial relationship). I didn't think the comedic qualities of the film trivialise the magnitude of the issues.I thought Mitchell Lichtenstein was very likable and I thought the challenges of the role in a Taiwanese set-up must have been very significant. The second time I watched the film, I tried seeing things from Simon's (Mitchell's character) perspective and found it a most profound experience.Ang Lee at his best.