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About This Film
Chaoyang and Zihong are planning to marry, but their parents have never met. A client’s request that they livestream their Chinese New Year reunion dinner turns that private family milestone into a public performance, and Chaoyang’s estrangement from his mother leads him to hire a fake family. Ong Kuo Sin’s comedy uses reunion dinner exactly as the title promises: not merely as a meal but as the holiday ritual through which family legitimacy, embarrassment, class, and reconciliation are tested. The farce works because Chinese New Year places unusually high emotional pressure on the idea of who belongs at the table.
Vibe
Lunar New Year —
Watch For
- Watch how the livestream turns family ritual into advertising performance.
- Notice the contrast between the fake relatives Chaoyang assembles and the genuine relationship he is avoiding.
- Track food preparation and seating as signs of hierarchy and belonging.
- Pay attention to how the comedy gradually shifts from deception toward reconciliation with Chaoyang’s mother.
Production Notes
GSC Movies lists Reunion Dinner as a 91-minute Mandarin Singaporean comedy-drama directed by Ong Kuo Sin. iQIYI’s own newsletter states that the film takes place during Chinese New Year and follows two families gathering for a reunion dinner to discuss their children’s marriage. Singapore’s Ministry of Communications and Information highlighted the film at its gala premiere as a significant Singapore-China media collaboration involving Clover Films and iQIYI. The holiday structure is therefore both narrative and production-facing: it was built as a Chinese New Year feature with a genuinely holiday-centered story.
Trivia
- Ong Kuo Sin directed the film.
- GSC lists a 91-minute runtime.
- The film was co-produced by Singapore’s Clover Films and iQIYI.
- The story centers on a Chinese New Year reunion dinner.
- Lawrence Wong, Cya Liu, Mark Lee, and Xiang Yun are among the principal cast.
Legacy
Reunion Dinner stands out among modern Lunar New Year releases because it satisfies the stricter Holiday Movie Night standard: the holiday is not merely the release window. Reunion dinner is the narrative mechanism through which the couple’s families are introduced, faked, exposed, and ultimately reconsidered. The film also represents contemporary Singaporean Mandarin commercial cinema and the increasingly regional nature of Chinese-language production. It is an especially useful counterpoint to All’s Well, Ends Well, whose inclusion rests on release/viewing tradition rather than plot.