Five great LGBT-themed movies from Taiwan, model of openness in Asia
In the week that Taiwan’s highest court made history by approving same-sex marriage, we look back at five films with lesbian, gay or bisexual themes
The Wedding Banquet (1993)
Long before his modern classic Brokeback Mountain, Taiwanese-American filmmaker Ang Lee made his international breakthrough with this enthralling family dramedy, about a New York-based gay man who stages a sham marriage in order to please his conservative Chinese parents.
The River (1997)
A homoerotic undercurrent runs through this utterly bleak film by art-house icon Tsai Ming-liang. An award winner in Berlin, this surreal family drama – featuring a patriarch who frequents Taipei’s gay saunas – doubles as a symbolic portrait of the contaminated lives of urban dwellers.
Blue Gate Crossing (2002)