been able to fire either “gun,” literally or figuratively. This denial of passage, including his missed chance of committing a violent act that is worthy of manhood, causes Virgil to kill himself with the gun in the bathroom like a teen hiding to masturbate.
Ben, the film’s protagonist, fulfills his trek to become a man by committing the most violent murder, and thus the film ends with Ben winning the love of his girlfriend. The reward for Ben’s rite of passage, albeit a violent one, is a direct cinematic retort by the Filmmaker Justin Lin to the genderization set-forth by Griffith and the Hollywood Asian male.
The sexuality of the Asian male, without context to gender, plays a significant role in The Wedding Banquet when Ang Lee, a heterosexual filmmaker, brings the desire for masculine unanimity from a homosexual Asian American protagonist, Wai-Tung Gao.