cinehunch
A FILM WORTH A CLOSER LOOKTHE FEATURE PRESENTATION
IF THIS ONE STAYED WITH YOU
Keep the feeling.
SIMILAR PICKS / A PERSONAL CONNECTION
01
Why this pick
Like The Wedding Banquet, it turns a concealed queer relationship and Chinese family expectations into a witty, tender romantic comedy, with escalating social complications handled more warmly than cynically.
02
Why this pick
Ang Lee again finds humor and ache in the gap between private desire and tradition. Its intricately staged family meals share The Wedding Banquet’s affection for ritual, generational friction, and unspoken feeling.
03
Why this pick
A lively cross-cultural romance in which family expectations create real pressure without reducing anyone to a villain; it shares the earlier film’s mix of awkward comedy, intimacy, and compassionate negotiation.
04
Why this pick
Alice Wu brings a similarly gentle eye to queer longing, Chinese-American family life, and feelings expressed sideways. It is quieter and more youthful, but equally alert to the roles people perform for others.
05
Why this pick
For the tender immigrant-family dimension of The Wedding Banquet, this offers a more reflective but richly observed portrait of love, duty, and identity across generations and cultures.
Finding the atmosphere, tension and little details that made this one stay with you.
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01 / THE STORY
Wai-Tung Gao and Simon are a happy same-sex couple living in Manhattan. Wai-Tung is in his late 20s, so his tradition-minded parents are eager to see him get married and have a child in order to continue the family line. When Wai-Tung's parents hire a dating service, he and Simon stall for time by inventing impossible demands. They demand an opera singer and add that she must be 5'9", have two PhDs, and speak five languages. The service actually locates a 5'8" Chinese woman who sings Western opera, speaks five languages and has a single PhD. She is very gracious when Wai-Tung explains his dilemma, as she, too, is hiding a relationship (with a white man). At Simon's insistence, Wai-Tung decides to marry one of his tenants, Wei-Wei, a penniless artist from mainland China in need of a green card. Besides helping Wei-Wei, Simon and Wai-Tung hope that this will placate Wai-Tung's parents. Before Wai-Tung's parents arrive, Simon tells Wei-Wei everything she needs to know about Wai-Tung's habits, body, and lifestyle, and the three take down all homosexual content from their house and replace it with traditional Chinese scrolls.
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02 / FACES IN THE FRAME
Simon
Guest
Wai-Tung Gao
Justice of the Peace
