The Wedding Banquet 2025

Gao Wai-Tung is a bisexual Taiwanese immigrant happily living in Manhattan with his gay Jewish partner Simon. He has not come out to his traditionally-minded parents who live back in Taiwan and, as he’s in his late-20s, they’ve become eager to see him get married and have a child in order to continue the family line. When his parents hire a dating service, Wai-Tung and Simon stall for time by inventing numerous impossible demands. They demand an opera singer while requesting that she must be 5’9”, have two PhDs, and speak five languages. To their shock, the service actually locates a 5’8” Chinese woman who meets all but one of their qualifications, having only a single PhD instead of two. She is very gracious when Wai-Tung explains his dilemma, as she too is hiding a relationship with a white man from her parents.

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, the couple hope that this will placate Wai-Tung’s parents. To complicate matters, Mr. and Mrs. Gao announce they will visit. Before the parents arrive, Simon tells Wei-Wei everything she needs to know about Wai-Tung’s habits, body, and lifestyle, and the three hastily take down all gay imagery and décor from the house and hang Mandarin calligraphy scrolls in its place.

Mr. and Mrs. Gao arrive bringing gifts and US$30,000 to hold an extravagant wedding for their son, believing he has a wealthy fiancée. Wai-Tung dares not tell his parents the truth, because his father (a retired army officer) has just recovered from a stroke. As a part of the lie, Wai-Tung introduces Simon as his landlord.

The day after his parents arrive, Wai-Tung announces that he and Wei-Wei plan to be married by a Justice of the Peace. However, the heartbreak his mother experiences at the courthouse wedding, both at the arrangement and at the discovery of the low social class of Wei-Wei, moves Wai-Tung to make up for the ‘disgraceful’ wedding by accepting the offer of a magnificent wedding banquet from Mr. Gao’s former batman, who now owns a restaurant and reception hall. After the lavish banquet, a huge party of relatives and friends barges into the bridal suite for an after party and demand that the newlyweds get in bed naked before they will leave. This leads to Wei-Wei’s pregnancy. Simon is extremely upset when he finds out, provoking an argument between the two of them and Wei-Wei, and his relationship with Wai-Tung begins to deteriorate.

Mr. Gao suffers another stroke, and in a moment of anger after the fight, Wai-Tung admits the truth to his mother. She is shocked and insists that he not tell his father. However, the perceptive Mr. Gao has seen more than he is letting on, and tells Simon that he knows about their relationship and considers Simon his son as well, appreciating the considerable sacrifices he made to be together with Wai-Tung. Mr. Gao gives Simon a hongbao, a symbolic admission of their relationship, but has Simon promise not to let on to the others that he knows the truth, saying that without the sham marriage, he’d never have a grandchild. While en route to an appointment for an abortion, Wei-Wei decides to keep the baby, and asks Simon to stay together with Wai-Tung and be the baby’s father too.

At the airport before the Gaos’ flight home, Mr. Gao accepts Simon and warmly shakes his hand and Mrs. Gao bids Wei-Wei a fond farewell before they walk off to board their plane, leaving the unconventional new family to figure themselves out.