Long before he won a Best Director Oscar for Brokeback Mountain, Ang Lee had already made a movie about the gay community.
The Wedding Banquet is a 1993 Chinese comedy about a happily coupled gay Taiwanese immigrant man (Winston Chao) in New York who marries a mainland Chinese woman to placate his parents and get her a green card. His plan backfires when his parents arrive in the United States to plan his wedding banquet. It's a wild story with many twists and turns (including Chao getting drunk and impregnating his female bride) but it has a happy ending through family love and devotion.
It was also a very popular movie, even garnering an Oscar nomination for Best Foreign Language Film.
These two scenes - which probably give away some of the plot - are very interesting. Check out the traumatic scene of Chao coming out to his mother and how she insists that his father not know:
But based on this scene with Chao's partner, his father not only knows but respects the relationship:
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The Wedding Banquet is a 1993 Chinese comedy about a happily coupled gay Taiwanese immigrant man (Winston Chao) in New York who marries a mainland Chinese woman to placate his parents and get her a green card. His plan backfires when his parents arrive in the United States to plan his wedding banquet. It's a wild story with many twists and turns (including Chao getting drunk and impregnating his female bride) but it has a happy ending through family love and devotion.
It was also a very popular movie, even garnering an Oscar nomination for Best Foreign Language Film.
These two scenes - which probably give away some of the plot - are very interesting. Check out the traumatic scene of Chao coming out to his mother and how she insists that his father not know:
But based on this scene with Chao's partner, his father not only knows but respects the relationship:
Past Know Your LGBT Posts:
Know Your LGBT History - Bachelor Party
Know Your LGBT History - Starsky and Hutch
Know Your LGBT History - The Naked Civil Servant
Know your LGBT History - Partners
Know Your LGBT History - All in the Family: Cousin Liz
Know Your LGBT History - Rebecca
Know Your LGBT History - urban African-American movies
Know Your LGBT History - Charles Pierce
Know Your LGBT History - Torch Song Trilogy
The Best of Know Your LGBT History
Know Your LGBT History - Masters of Horror - Sick Girl
Know Your LGBT History - MadTV
Know Your LGBT History - Gimme A Break
Know Your LGBT History - Not Another Gay Movie
Know Your LGBT History - My Beautiful Laundrette
Know Your LGBT History - The Rocky Horror Picture Show
Know Your LGBT History - I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry
Know Your LGBT History - The Gay Deceivers
Know Your LGBT History - Reflections in a Golden Eye
Know Your LGBT History - Dynasty
Know Your LGBT History - Milk
Know Your LGBT History - Black Shampoo
Know Your LGBT History - Never Too Young To Die
Know Your LGBT History - All About Eve
Know Your LGBT History - Hotel
Know Your LGBT History - The Streets of San Francisco
Know Your LGBT History - Two looks at transgender characters in films
Know Your LGBT History - Flawless
Know Your LGBT History - Mahogany
Know Your LGBT History - Beverly Hills Cop
Know Your LGBT History - Some Like It Hot
Know Your LGBT History - Bring Me The Head of Alfredo Garcia
Know Your LGBT History - Dirty Laundry
Know Your LGBT History - The Willie Witch Project
Know Your LGBT History - Spartacus
Know Your LGBT History - Caged
Know Your LGBT History - The Birdcage
Know Your LGBT History - Maude
Know Your LGBT History - That Certain Summer
Know Your LGBT History - Boat Trip
Know Your LGBT History - Staircase
Know Your LGBT History - Beautiful Thing
Know Your LGBT History - Armed and Dangerous
Know Your LGBT History - The Proud Family
Know Your LGBT History - Suddenly Last Summer
Know Your LGBT History - Gay TV Now
Know Your LGBT History - Stewardess School
Know Your LGBT History - Up the Academy
Know Your LGBT History - Don't be a Menace to South Central While Drinking Your Juice in the Hood
Know Your LGBT History - A Different Story
Know Your LGBT History - Victim
Know Your LGBT History - The Color Purple
Know Your LGBT History - Making Love
Know Your LGBT History - A Nightmare on Elm Street Part 2: Freddy's Revenge
Know Your LGBT History - Noah's Arc
Know Your LGBT History - Ode to Billy Joe
Know Your LGBT History - Adorable Adrian Adonis
Know Your LGBT History - The Night Strangler
Know Your LGBT History - All in the Family
Know Your LGBT History - Tongues Untied
Know Your LGBT History - The Celluloid Closet
Know Your LGBT History - Querelle
Know Your LGBT History - Theatre of Blood
Know Your LGBT History - Strange Fruit
Know Your LGBT History - Designing Women
Know Your LGBT History - The Children's Hour
Know Your LGBT History - Sylvester
Know Your LGBT History - Once Bitten
Know Your LGBT History - The Boys in the Band
Know Your LGBT History - Christopher Morley, the crossdressing assassin
Know Your LGBT History - Midnight Cowboy
Know Your LGBT History - Dracula's Daughter
Know Your LGBT History - Blacula
Know Your LGBT History - 3 Strikes
Know Your LGBT History - Paris Is Burning
Know Your LGBT History - The Women
Know your LGBT History - Soul Plane
Know Your LGBT History - The Player's Club
Special Know Your LGBT History - Fame
Know Your LGBT History - Welcome Home, Bobby
Know Your LGBT History - Barney Miller
Know your lgbt history - The Jerry Springer Show
Know your lgbt history - Martin Lawrence and that 'gay guy' on his show
Know your lgbt history - The Ricki Lake Show
Know your lgbt history - Which Way Is Up
Know your lgbt history - Gays in Primetime Soaps
Know your lgbt history - Boys Beware
Know your lgbt history - The Boondocks
Know your lgbt history - Mannequin
Know your lgbt history - The Warriors
Know Your LGBT History - New York Undercover
Know Your LGBT History - Low Down Dirty Shame
Know Your LGBT History - Fortune and Men's Eyes
Know your lgbt history - California Suite
Know your lgbt history - Taxi (Elaine's Strange Triangle)
Know your lgbt history - Come Back Charleston Blue
Know your lgbt history - James Bond goes gay
Know your lgbt history - Windows
Know your lgbt history - To Wong Foo and Priscilla
Know your lgbt history - Blazing Saddles
Know your lgbt history - Sanford and Son
Know your lgbt history - In Living Color
Know your lgbt history - Cleopatra Jones and her lesbian drug lords
Know your lgbt history - Norman, Is That You?
Know your lgbt history - The 'Exotic' Adrian Street
Know your lgbt history - The Choirboys
Know your lgbt history - Eddie Murphy
Know your lgbt history - The Killing of Sister George
Know your lgbt history - Hanna-Barbera cartoons pushes the 'gay agenda
'Know your lgbt history - Cruising
Know your lgbt history - Foxy Brown and Cleopatra Jones
Know your lgbt history - I Got Da Hook Up
Know your lgbt history - Fright Night
Know your lgbt history - Flowers of Evil
The Jeffersons and the transgender community
4 comments:
It's available on Netflix Watch Instantly:
http://movies.netflix.com/WiPlayer?movieid=60011421&trkid=2361637
I remember seeing this film in a theater and bawling my eyes out at that last scene where the father talks about gaining a son. Lee is an amazing filmmaker.
D'awwwww!
This is a great film that I've shown in classes in very conservative areas (eg., Mississippi and Poland) and, while there's been a measure of discomfort, most of my students respond positively. The genius of Lee is that he wraps this very positive gay story in a universal theme of children trying to live up to the expectations of their parents and parents coming to accept their children for who they are.
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