Here Ang Lee makes a film about Chinese identity in the United States and the ostracized place of gay marriage in traditional Asian values. The centerpiece of the film is the wedding reception itself, showcasing a traditional Chinese/Taiwanese wedding between a secretly gay groom and his bride. This is an early-nineties film, so there are a lot of strange purple-ish values to the tones, and the fashions/costumes worn by some of the characters are rather amusingly dated.
The plot: Wai-Tung (Winston Chao) is a gay, first-generation American-Chinese living in Manhattan with his lover, Simon (Mitchell Lichtenstein). Wai-Tung's parents seem to be of traditional Taiwanese stock and are pressuring their son to get married so he can hurry up and provide an heir for them. The problem is that Wai-Tung is an in-the-closet homosexual and is also their only child. At first they try to set him up on blind dates with Chinese girls, so he tells them he has a fiancée. So when they come to visit him, he attempts to hide his homosexuality and arranges a fake wedding with Wei-Wei, a financially troubled female tenant in a building he rents out.
The demeanor of the acts notably shift throughout the film. The movie starts out as a somewhat zany, light comedy and then segues into melancholy drama when the conservative Chinese parents test the rigors of the gay son's relationship. But I couldn't really understand Wai-Tung: what did he and Simon do for a living? Where did his (pre-marriage scheme) relationship with Wei-Wei develop from and how does he own her building? Some of this stuff was kinda... too convenient in my mind. But then again, maybe I just haven't seen the movie recently enough.
On the surface the film appears to be about gay culture contrasted against Chinese culture, but like a lot of Ang Lee films it is not about what it appears to be. And by this I do not mean his films have some extraordinary depth that we do not initially notice, but that they simply present capable stories within a variety of locales and aesthetics. The main reason I do not think it is realistically about gay/traditional Chinese culture is because of the ending. It feels like a Spielberg film script, and to some degree I believe Ang Lee is the Spielberg of Chinese-American cinema. The film is entertaining, but it has too many moments of unbelievable schmaltz or attempts at cheesy emotional affections.
Ang Lee does provide a nice window into Taiwanese culture abroad and raises questions about gay identity in contrast to traditional Asian values. To be honest, I have not seen too many films on the subject (and probably none which can be considered "mainstream") so for this I can give Ang Lee props. It is only really flawed by the convenience of plot details, which makes me suspect the conclusion was completely crafted fiction and not taken from experience or real life.
The plot: Wai-Tung (Winston Chao) is a gay, first-generation American-Chinese living in Manhattan with his lover, Simon (Mitchell Lichtenstein). Wai-Tung's parents seem to be of traditional Taiwanese stock and are pressuring their son to get married so he can hurry up and provide an heir for them. The problem is that Wai-Tung is an in-the-closet homosexual and is also their only child. At first they try to set him up on blind dates with Chinese girls, so he tells them he has a fiancée. So when they come to visit him, he attempts to hide his homosexuality and arranges a fake wedding with Wei-Wei, a financially troubled female tenant in a building he rents out.
The demeanor of the acts notably shift throughout the film. The movie starts out as a somewhat zany, light comedy and then segues into melancholy drama when the conservative Chinese parents test the rigors of the gay son's relationship. But I couldn't really understand Wai-Tung: what did he and Simon do for a living? Where did his (pre-marriage scheme) relationship with Wei-Wei develop from and how does he own her building? Some of this stuff was kinda... too convenient in my mind. But then again, maybe I just haven't seen the movie recently enough.
On the surface the film appears to be about gay culture contrasted against Chinese culture, but like a lot of Ang Lee films it is not about what it appears to be. And by this I do not mean his films have some extraordinary depth that we do not initially notice, but that they simply present capable stories within a variety of locales and aesthetics. The main reason I do not think it is realistically about gay/traditional Chinese culture is because of the ending. It feels like a Spielberg film script, and to some degree I believe Ang Lee is the Spielberg of Chinese-American cinema. The film is entertaining, but it has too many moments of unbelievable schmaltz or attempts at cheesy emotional affections.
Ang Lee does provide a nice window into Taiwanese culture abroad and raises questions about gay identity in contrast to traditional Asian values. To be honest, I have not seen too many films on the subject (and probably none which can be considered "mainstream") so for this I can give Ang Lee props. It is only really flawed by the convenience of plot details, which makes me suspect the conclusion was completely crafted fiction and not taken from experience or real life.