Ang Lee's The Wedding Banquet is a bittersweet comedy drama about cultural traditions, hidden sexuality, and familial relationships--how these three things can easily and confusingly intertwine. The plot follows a gay Asian American who agrees to a marriage of convenience to satisfy his nagging parents, but it gets wonderfully out of control when they arrive and demand an extravagant wedding banquet to celebrate. It is a rare treat for a movie to have a story as rich as this one while simultaneously attacking the viewer from all emotional and thematic fronts, never letting up until the fantastically touching closing frame. It is the kind of movie that makes you glad to be human, in all our frailty and folly, because we are in the end capable of goodness and decency. It is both moving and hilarious, but more importantly the movie has a determined sense of purpose. It has universal messages and is never afraid to venture into territory that might appear beyond its scope.I liked the movie, it seems, in every aspect except the technical one. The filmmaking felt quite amateurish at times, with bizarre blocking and blunt editing every so often invading my enjoyment of the story. (A remarkable thing considering the editing in his next film, Eat Drink Man Woman, was probably the best part.) As in his following film, the first 20 or so minutes were weakened by stilted acting and mechanical dialogue. These disappear after the introductory scenes, but their presence at all is curious indeed. Despite these technical imperfections, the viewer becomes quickly entranced by Ang Lee's exceptional storytelling ability. This film should not be missed.
IMDb link: http://imdb.com/title/tt0107156/