The story concerns a bisexual Taiwanese immigrant man (Winston Chao, in his film debut) who marries a mainland Chinese woman (May Chin) to placate his parents (Gua Ah-leh and Lung Sihung) and get her a green card.

Together with Pushing Hands (1991) and Eat Drink Man Woman (1994), all showing the Confucian family at risk, and all starring the Taiwanese actor Lung Sihung, The Wedding Banquet forms what has been called Lee's "Father Knows Best" trilogy.

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.

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.

[citation needed] Marino wrote that "after striving to read the subtitles for the first ten or fifteen minutes, one finds oneself so completely absorbed in the flow of the story, in the tones of the several voices, in the gestures and the facial expressions of the actors, that one simply forgets to read and reaches an understanding beyond languages, beyond words, following a plot and, most of all, a set of characters who do not conform to the stereotypical portrayals an American audience would expect."

Marino argued that "Lee's creative process and his final choice of two languages, Mandarin Chinese and English, for the movie are in themselves symptomatic of his wish to reach a peaceful coexistence between apparently irreconcilable cultures, without conferring the leading role on either of them.

[6] The Wedding Banquet was the debut film of Winston Chao, whom Ang Lee met on an airline where he was working as a flight attendant.

To keep the budget low, the production used free or public locations, including JFK International Airport, the Mayor's Office of Film, Theatre & Broadcasting, Socrates Sculpture Park in Queens, NewYork-Presbyterian Lower Manhattan Hospital, and cast and crew members' homes.

The website's critical consensus reads, "Ang Lee's funny and ultimately poignant comedy of manners reveals the filmmaker's skill across genres.

"[7] Alan Jones of the Radio Times said, "Sharply observed and never once striking a false note, this sweet-and-sour rib-tickler is a real treat."

Roger Ebert wrote, "What makes the film work is the underlying validity of the story, the way the filmmakers don't simply go for melodrama and laughs, but pay these characters their due.

[2] A remake from director Andrew Ahn starring Lily Gladstone, Kelly Marie Tran and Bowen Yang in the key roles, with supporting parts from Joan Chen and Youn Yuh-jung, is set to premiere at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival.

Yorkey, Village's associate artistic director, said this of the production, "The film succeeds because of Ang Lee's delicate poetry, and there is no way we can replicate that or translate that into a musical.