The Wedding Banquet

The Wedding Banquet
The Wedding Banquet
	Theatrical release poster
Chinese name
Traditional Chinese	喜宴
Hanyu Pinyin
Transcriptions
Standard Mandarin
Hanyu Pinyin	Xǐyàn
Directed by	Ang Lee
Written by	Ang Lee; Neil Peng; James Schamus
Produced by	Ang Lee; Ted Hope; James Schamus
Starring	Gua Ah-leh; Lung Sihung; May Chin; Winston Chao; Mitchell Lichtenstein;
Cinematography	Jong Lin
Edited by	Tim Squyres
Music by	Thierry Schollhammer; Chosei Funahara
Production; companies	Good Machine; Central Motion Picture Corporation
Distributed by	Central Motion Picture Corporation (Taiwan); The Samuel Goldwyn Company (U.S.)
Release dates	February 1993 (Berlin); 5 March 1993 (Taiwan); 4 August 1993 (U.S.);
Running time	106 minutes
Countries	Taiwan; United States
Languages	Mandarin; English
Budget	$1 million
Box office	$23.6 million

The Wedding Banquet^[3] is a 1993 romantic comedy film directed, produced and co-written by Ang Lee. The story concerns a gay Taiwanese immigrant man (played by Winston Chao, in his film debut) who marries a mainland Chinese woman (May Chin) to placate his parents (Gua Ah-leh and Lung Sihung) and get her a green card. His plan backfires when his parents arrive in the United States to plan his wedding banquet and he has to hide the truth of his gay partner (Mitchell Lichtenstein). It was a co-production of Lee's Good Machine production company, and the Taiwanese Central Motion Picture Corporation.

Lee's second feature film and his first to get a theatrical release in the United States, The Wedding Banquet premiered at the 43rd Berlin International Film Festival, where it won the Golden Bear. It was both a critical and commercial success and won five Golden Horse Awards, including Best Film and Best Director. It received Oscar and Golden Globe nominations for Best Foreign-Language Film, as well as six Independent Spirit Award nominations.

Together with Pushing Hands (1991) and Eat Drink Man Woman (1994), all showing the Confucian family at risk, and all starring the Taiwanese actor Lung Sihung, The Wedding Banquet forms what has been called Lee's "Father Knows Best" trilogy.^[4]

In 2023, the film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant"."

^ "The Wedding Banquet (1993)". AFI Catalog. American Film Institute.
^ ^a ^b Cite error: The named reference variety was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
^ Chinese: 喜宴; pinyin: Xǐyàn; Wade–Giles: Hsi yen
^ Dariotis, Wei Ming; Fung, Eileen (1 January 1997). "Breaking the Soy Sauce Jar: Diaspora and Displacement in the Films of Ang Lee". In Lu, Hsiao-peng; Lu, Sheldon H. (eds.). Transnational Chinese Cinemas: Identity, Nationhood, Gender. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press. p. 212. ISBN 978-0-8248-1845-6. Retrieved 27 October 2015.

[afi-1] "The Wedding Banquet (1993)". AFI Catalog. American Film Institute.

[variety-2] Cite error: The named reference variety was invoked but never defined (see the help page).

[3] Chinese: 喜宴; pinyin: Xǐyàn; Wade–Giles: Hsi yen

[4] Dariotis, Wei Ming; Fung, Eileen (1 January 1997). "Breaking the Soy Sauce Jar: Diaspora and Displacement in the Films of Ang Lee". In Lu, Hsiao-peng; Lu, Sheldon H. (eds.). Transnational Chinese Cinemas: Identity, Nationhood, Gender. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press. p. 212. ISBN 978-0-8248-1845-6. Retrieved 27 October 2015.

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