The plot would sound in synopsis like a sex farce. Wai-Tung, a real-estate entrepreneur transplanted from Taiwan to New York, has three reasons to marry Wei-Wei, a Mainland Chinese artist who rents a loft from Wai-Tung in Lower Manhattan: first, to get a tax break; second, to get a green card for Wei-Wei; third and foremost, to placate his parents (Mom keeps trying to matchmake from long distance; Dad has had a stroke and does not have much time left to realize his one dream: to hold a grandchild in his arms). The problem is that Wai-Tung is homosexual and happily coupled with Simon, a nice blond American boy. This only becomes a problem because the parents insist on coming to the wedding. Complications are as simple as they are predictable: Wai-Tung's father gets too sick to go home; Wei-Wei gets pregnant. Director Ang Lee, himself a transplant from Taiwan, is rather too deliberate, too "sensitive," too educationalistic for the purposes of farce, though the plot is too trumped-up for much else. It falls mainly to the music (by the one-name French composer, Mader) to maintain a jaunty tone. And while Lee is admirably concerned to keep track of everyone's feelings -- and there are some surprisingly onerous ones to keep track of -- he has his hands full to the fumbling point with that. It would have taken a gaze as omniscient as Ozu's. (1993) — Duncan Shepherd
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