The Wonderful Wedding (2015) Review – A Popular Taiwanese Comedy Movie

Q: When was the Wonderful Wedding released?

The Wonderful Wedding was released in 2015, and was the top domestic film of the Chinese New Year holidays in Taiwan .

By Annie Kuan
Chinese Movies
May 26, 2020
4 Comments

The Wonderful Wedding Review – Explore Chinese and Taiwanese Wedding Culture

The Wonderful Wedding – different wedding cultures between mainland China and Taiwan

The Wonderful Wedding | An Introduction
The Wonderful Wedding | Cast
The Wonderful Wedding | Homonyms
The Wonderful Wedding | Cultural Differences
The Wonderful Wedding | Where to Watch

The Wonderful Wedding – Introduction

The Wonderful Wedding tells the story of a Taiwanese girl named Shu Fen and a boy from mainland China called Gao Fei who want to get married.

However, they have to persuade their parents first, and must try to overcome the cultural differences between Taiwan and China.

Seeing how the two sides differ, especially when it comes to wedding customs makes for an interesting story.

The Wonderful Wedding was released in 2015, and was the top domestic film of the Chinese New Year holidays in Taiwan.

The movie is suitable for students who have a basic or intermediate Chinese level.

The relaxing atmosphere of the movie means that students can bot only learn the language, but also find out more about Taiwanese and mainland Chinese culture.

The Wonderful Wedding – Cast

Ruby Lin (林心如 lín xīnrú)

Plays Li Shu Fen (李淑芬 lǐ shūfēn).

Ruby Lin is a Taiwanese actress, television and film producer and singer.

Chu Ke-liang (豬哥亮 zhū gēliàng)

Plays Li Jin Shuang (李金爽 lǐ jīnshuǎng) – Li Shu Fen’s father.

Chu Ke-liang is a Taiwanese comedian, actor television host and singer.

Li Dongxue (李東學 lǐ dōngxué)

Plays Gao Fei (高飛 gāo fēi).

Li Dongxue also known as Ethan Li or Li Yuan is a Chinese actor.

The Wonderful Wedding – Homonyms

Firstly, for anyone who doesn’t know, a homonym is where a word has the same spelling or pronunciation but a different meaning.

In The Wonderful Wedding, from the very beginning, homonyms are used to create the name of the main characters.

This means that when you translate these names to Chinese or Taiwanese, they will have a different meaning.

An example of this is as a friend of Shu Fen’s father called 簡道千(jiǎn dào qiān) which sounds like “pick the money”.

Another example is a friend of She Fen’s called 錢頌伊 (qián sòng yī) which sounds like “give you money” in Taiwanese.

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If you are thinking about learning Chinese as a second language, watching Chinese films and TV shows are a great way to learn.

The Wonderful Wedding – Differences in Chinese and Taiwanese Wedding Culture

This is a great movie for showing the differences between wedding customs and culture in mainland China and Taiwan.

In The Wonderful Wedding there are two areas which really show this which are the engagement and the wedding.

These scenes fully show the various arrangements made by the Chinese and Taiwanese for the marriage.
The differences in wedding customs on both sides are also quite novel.

For instance, 聘金 (pìn jīn)… this is where the groom’s side has to prepare an amount of money to give to the bride’s side.

In Taiwan six is a good number, so normally we will prefer to receive an amount of money all made up of the number six such as 66,666.

However, in mainland China the preference is to receive the number 10,001 (萬中選一 wàn zhōng xuǎn yī). This means “you are the best one”.

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Another instance where this can be seen is the wedding ceremony.

In mainland China it is traditional for the groom’s family to put peanuts and dates on the marriage bed for a good saying of Chinese: 早生貴子 (zǎo shēng guì zǐ).

This is not the case in Taiwan.

Aside from cultural differences, we get to see the luxury lifestyle of 土豪 (tǔ háo) and the extravagance of 田僑仔 (tián qiáo zǎi) in this fabulous movie.

You also get to see how there aren’t only differences in customs and people’s feelings, in fact, as the saying goes: 家家有本難念的經 (jiā jiā yǒu běn nán niàn de jīng).

This means that “each family is hard to read”, or rather each family has different ways of getting along with each other.

Integrating into another family is not a simple matter, the contrast of several families in the film is very impressive.