The Wedding Banquet

The Wedding Banquet

The Wedding Banquet, by Ang Lee, is a comedy about the odd paring of Wai-Tung and his soon to be bride, Wei-Wei. Wei-Wei is a starving artist living in one of the apartment buildings owned by Wai-Tung. She is always asking him out because she needs to get married in order to obtain a green card. She appears to get more and more brash about her feelings about marrying him as the movie goes on. She constantly remarks about how handsome she finds him and dreams of being married and free of worry of being sent away from the only place she has to call a home. Probably the only thing stopping Wei-Wei from actually taking the most aggressive step and physically throwing herself on him is because she knows the true Wai-Tung. The true Wai-Tung is actually involved with another man named Simon, and without his parents knowledge he has been living with him in Manhattan. His parents, back in their home land of Taiwan have been longing for their son to grant them a grandchild and have even so far as to hire a dating service for him. To make it even more hilarious they make him send them qualifications that the woman must meet in order to fulfill his requirements; the list included the speaking of several languages, professional singer and even two PhD’s. When this fails Wai-Tung feels like he’s disappointing his family by not getting married traditionally and with the support of his partner decides to temporarily, marry the starving artist Wei-Wei. What was meant to be a means to an end or a quick fix would soon begin the chaining of events that lead Wai-Tung’s secret to be revealed and his relationship with Wei-Wei was simply an attempt to cover his real relationship with Simon. I enjoyed the film but didn't find much humor in it, but when I went back and watched the trailor online it was advertised as this hilarious comedy. I like the character of Wei-Wei too, she seemed like my kind of girl in some ways, bold and independent. Also Mr. Gao was one of my favorite characters just because of how stern he is and some of the facial expressions he has remind me of my own grandfather. I found it difficult to see the film as a comedy though. I guess because the language is foreign it's difficult to understand the comedic timing used by those people.