In Chinese culture, “ double happiness ” refers to an ornamental design commonly found festooned across wedding ceremonies, formed by placing two copies of the Chinese character for joy next to each other. In doing so, it forms a kind of hybrid character, one that literally doesn’t mean anything, but is accorded a certain significance for how it handily represents the intended satisfaction of both bride and groom, and by extension their families. Such a conundrum is clearly on the mind of Taiwanese director Joseph Chen-Chieh Hsu , whose film “Double Happiness” uses an absurd premise — a couple holds two weddings at the same time in order to appease the groom’s parents — as a means of bringing out all manner of familial tensions, with decidedly mixed results.

Tim Kao (Kuang-Ting Liu) i

See Full Page