Mubi Monday: The Wedding Banquet (1993)

If you simply go by the premise of The Wedding Banquet then it would be easy to expect either a farcical comedy or a hand-wringing drama. It's all about a young man (Winston Chao) who marries a woman (May Chin) in order that she can get her green card and he can placate his parents, and divert them from the fact that he has been happy in a gay relationship with his partner (Mitchell Lichtenstein) for quite some time.

Yes, there are a couple of obvious films that you might already be thinking of. Let me assure you, The Wedding Banquet is not in line with those films. There are moments of comedy here but this is more about the tension created, and the lengths that people will go to in order to hide their true identity from their parents, especially with the extra weight placed upon individuals born into a culture that at times makes more demands of them.

Director Ang Lee, who worked on the screenplay with Neil Peng, and also James Schamus, does start things off in a very lighthanded way. It all seems quite easily doable, and the central characters seem to think that they can get the whole thing over with and then get back to their everyday lives once everyone is happy. A deceit this big, however, isn't just thrown together, carried out, and then forgotten about for the rest of your days. It takes a toll, on the deceivers and those being deceived.

The performances are perfect throughout, with Chao, Chin, and Lichtenstein all getting some great moments here and there, but it's Gua Ah-leh and Lung Sihung (playing the mother and father, respectively) who somehow ending up stealing many of the scenes. Considering how they enter the movie as the main obstacles in the way of happiness for our leading male characters, it's surprising to see how they develop through the film. The writers take care to show that these elders aren't necessarily as close-minded as some may think, but they also have even more weight on their shoulders than anything they pass on to their own children. It's a cycle, but one that may be changed slowly and surely, over time.

Despite being only the second feature from director Lee, this already has signs of his consumate skill. His deft blending of genre elements, his ability to pace things perfectly without it ever feeling too slow, and his general view on the world (able to look forward without forgetting everything that came beforehand). It may not be as beautiful as his other movies but that feels, at least partially, dictated by the content of the film.

I've probably seen just over half of Lee's filmography at this point. Not one of them has disappointed me.

8/10

This is a fine set worth picking up, for the price.
Americans may want this blu.

The Meg (2018)

Let's all be honest with one another, The Meg should have been advertised as "Stath vs Shark" because that is what everyone is paying to see. The shark in question may be a megalodon but that doesn't mean it has an advantage over the mighty Stath.

The plot is fairly simple, of course. Some deep sea explorers go even deeper than they expected, penetrating a cloud layer that hides a potential whole new ecosystem, and maybe even a new species or two. Unfortunately, their exploration gains the attention of a humongous killer shark (the meg of the title), and the majority of the movie is spent with the humans trying to avoid becoming fish food while they figure out how to destroy the monster.

Yet, whatever else is thrown onscreen, The Meg is all about Stath vs Shark, and it is in those pure moments that the film comes closest to being as entertaining as I wanted it to be. Stath uses his courage and smarts to outwit the killing machine, often escaping by the skin of his teeth (or, indeed, the skin on the soles of his feet as the shark bites the water just inches from him).

It is just a huge shame that the rest of the film doesn't come close, hampered by pedestrian direction from Jon Turteltaub, a lack of much-needed gore and bloodshed, and a script that makes the mistake of thinking viewers need fleeting attempts to be earnest in between scenes of a big shark out to chomp everything in its path. The novels by Steve Alten may be a lot of fun, although I haven't read them so cannot comment definitively on their quality or entertainment factor, but writers Dean Georgaris and Jon and Eric Hoeber are unable to shape and polish what should have been an easy "win".

It's hard to fault the cast, who work with a script that is constantly undermining them with poor dialogue and a wildly uneven tone, but it's also hard to forgive everyone when compared against those who pitch their performance just right. Statham does well in the lead, which is a saving grace, and he's almost matched by Rainn Wilson, playing the required douchebag of the film (although, to be fair, he isn't depicted as irredeemably bad, he's just not half as smart as he thinks he is). Ruby Rose, Cliff Curtis, and Page Kennedy all do quite well, as does the little girl playing young Meiying, the one child amongst the adults. Those faring much worse include poor Li Bingbing and Winston Chao, both suffering when involved in the scenes that try to be more earnest, and also Jessica McNamee and Robert Taylor.

There are fun moments throughout, and the whole movie is saved by the timing of the set-pieces, but The Meg is another big, dumb blockbuster that proves that size isn't everything. Great CGI and special effects can't make up for the laziness of the jump scares, the outright laughable dialogue, and the fact that the characters are so paper-thin that I'm amazed they don't disintegrate as soon as they come into contact with the seawater.

5/10

The Meg will be surfacing here.
Americans can give it a wave here.