Description

Nov. 6 screening free for UCSD students, faculty, and staff. All attendees are welcome to free reception preceding the Nov. 6 screening.

When it comes to marriage, Taiwanese bumpkin Mr. Li has two simple rules for his daughter: no Americans, no blacks. So when she brings home the downright unfathomable (a mainlander!) and stores a secret (a baby!), things get topsy-turvy more quickly than the new direct flights to Beijing (hilarity!). That’s because Mr. Li is played by Chu Ke-liang, the bowl-cutted funnyman who has come to represent nativist stubbornness in 21st century Taiwan, and who has perfected the endearing curmudgeon prone to soap-box folksiness and endless Taiwanese wordplay no mainlander is meant to understand.

What makes THE WONDERFUL WEDDING so much more than the usual ultra-local Chu Ke-liang farce is how sneakily it’s able to simultaneously assert Taiwanese distinctiveness while mocking its more pigheaded characters, so wackily captured by its resident jester. Resurrecting classic bilingual romantic comedies like Lee Hsing’s Both Sides are Happy and Wang Tian-lin’s The Greatest Civil War On Earth, THE WONDERFUL WEDDING pits supposed opposites against each other only to razzle them up in matrimonial lunacy. Can Taiwanese superstition settle down with the Beijing nouveau riche? Can a Kaohsiung hick negotiate betrothal money in RMB?

Director Huang Chao-liang keeps cross-straits diplomacy as light as a wedding veil and allows his stars to parade family love with a befuddled grin. With puns galore and a hilarious supporting cast, this year’s Taiwanese box-office smash gives everyone something to laugh at. –Brian Hu

Co-Presented by: PAL-SD

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