rating: 10/10
girl this film almost moved me to tears at the end. brokeback mountain did nothing for me but the wedding banquet did. there’s sm in this movie it’s hard to describe. i especially loved how waitung’s parents’ love for him is depicted in the movie. everything is so nuanced. weiwei’s unrequited feelings for waitung, her identity as a person, her homesickness, and waitung’s suppression and relationship with simon, simon’s own sadness at seeing the man he’s in love with going to such lengths to hide his sexuality from his parents. fuuuuuuck. the wedding banquet sequence was so beautiful. i loved seeing a wedding party from another culture, mostly coz it reminded me sm of how indian weddings go too. highkey gave me wedding fever. weiwei being fed lotus soup by her mother-in-law, who blows on it to cool it down before feeding it to her—that scene was so heartwarming for me. just the care and love in every scene got to me. i don’t care that this was a movie. they’re a real family to me. papa gao’s conversation with simon is also so interesting, and mama gao’s want for weiwei to have a child because she herself couldn’t have any kids after waitung. UGHH KMSSS I LOVE THIS MOVIE ITS SO COMPLICATED. i actually love that there’s no neat bowtie resolution to every conflict. if they made this movie today, they would try to make the parents woke asf and accept their son after minimal conflict. but here, the parents love their son, but they still can’t fully confront the fact that he’s gay man in love with another man. they’re content living in the lie the son’s created despite knowing otherwise. that’s why the last scene is so powerful in a way. mama gao is crying as they walk into the airport for gloomier reasons. meanwhile papa gao looks fine and happy, and he is, coz his son’s sexuality doesn’t completely matter to him—as long as he gets his grandkid. i’m pretty sure papa gao might’ve harboured his own feelings for a guy when he was younger. he literally says he ran away from an arranged marriage when he was younger but had to marry someone to carry on the name coz his entire family line died. he’s driven by responsibility, and so is waitung. although, papa gao might’ve been bisexual coz his relationship with mama gao feels pretty genuine. waitung’s definitely homosexual. i do like waitung and weiwei’s relationship. they’re good friends, almost sibling-like if not for the fact that weiwei was in love with him and they slept together… anyways, again, LOVE THIS FILM TO DEATHH. i originally discovered it while looking for queer movies with east asian protagonists that explored desire for said east asian men. it’s kinda difficult to come by queer asians in films or tv shows, at least in mainstream hollywood, coz they’re more focused on white, black, or hispanic characters. asian characters rarely get to be queer on main. i was trying to explore this coz of scott and kenji. they mean the world to me.
