The Wedding Banquet
How do you remake a movie like The Wedding Banquet in an era when gay marriage, something far from a reality in 1993 when Ang Lee’s original film was released, is … well, just marriage? It’s certainly a tall order. But director Andrew Ahn adds a healthy dose of millennial angst to the proceedings, restructuring the conflict from largely external to frequently internal. Now that the LGBTQ+ community can get married and have families, now that the option is available for them, they have to make the weighty decision of whether or not those choices are right for them as individuals.
Angela (Kelly Marie Tran) and Lee (Lily Gladstone) are in the midst of an expensive journey to start a family via IVF, but there are some complications. For one, the IVF has failed twice, and now they have to decide if they can afford to go through a third cycle, but perhaps more importantly, Angela’s fears over whether or not she’ll make a good mother cause her to hesitate. Meanwhile, their friend Min (Han Gi-chan) faces a conundrum of his own. The orphaned, closeted grandson of Korean millionaires, Min’s time in the United States appears to be running short, as his stern grandmother (Youn Yuh-jung) gives him an ultimatum: Either take on a role at the family company, or prepare to return home. After his proposal to his commitment-phobe boyfriend Chris (Bowen Yang) ends in disaster, he seems to be out of options. Until, that is, he comes up with an idea so crazy it just might work. In exchange for the money to pursue IVF, Angela will get a quickie marriage to Min, offering him heterosexual cover for his family and a green card in the bargain. But when Min’s grandmother arrives expecting a full, traditional wedding, things get exponentially more complicated.
From the very beginning of the film, it’s clear that Andrew Ahn has put a considerable amount of thought into how to update the narrative. The Wedding Banquet consistently subverts and undermines our expectations of how the storyline is going to play out, and particularly how the maternal characters in the film are going to react to the shenanigans of the younger generation. The result is a story that’s less about the conflict between parents and children, and more about how the characters address all the trauma and uncertainty within themselves. The end result is a film that still has all the quirky, over-the-top chaos of the original, as Min and Angela find themselves in way over their heads, but doesn’t feel dated in regards to its relationship with how cultural views on the LGBTQ+ community have evolved since then.
In an ensemble piece like this, it relies on the charms of its cast members, and The Wedding Banquet sees them firing on all cylinders. Lily Gladstone radiates a warm, comforting presence throughout the entire film – if anything, she’s underutilized, often relegated to reacting to the shenanigans of the other characters. Kelly Marie Tran makes us empathize with her total mess of a character, who is perpetually conflicted with how much she loves Lee and how scared she is becoming a mother, considering the emotional scars inflicted by her own mother (Joan Chen). Bowen Yang is a bit more of a mixed bag. As Chris, he nails the comedic moments of the film, but is stretched to his limits as a performer during its more emotional beats. It doesn’t help matters that Chris is probably the most underwritten character in The Wedding Banquet, giving him less to latch onto. The most pleasant surprise of The Wedding Banquet is Han Gi-chan, whose performance as Min is like a sheer ball of light. This was his English language debut, but he brings such an effortless charisma and sense of humor to all of his line readings, you would hardly know it. He’s been working in South Korea for a handful of years, but here’s hoping that this will represent the beginning of a fruitful career on both sides of the Pacific.
Overall, what Andrew Ahn has created here, despite its limitations, serves as both a respectful nod to the original Ang Lee and a thoughtfully updated story for 2025 audiences. The Wedding Banquet has a tremendous ensemble cast who all work together to contribute their unique strengths to the production, and the main four are bolstered tremendously by the presence of veterans Joan Chen and Youn Yuh-jung in supporting roles as a pair of family matriarchs. In addition to the comfort of a familiar story, it isn’t afraid to throw in a few surprises, misdirecting us from how we assume certain characters are going to react to The Wedding Banquet’s comedy of errors. It may not be perfect, but it feels like the cinematic equivalent of a warm hug, and who doesn’t need that these days?
Directed by Andrew Ahn
Starring Kelly Marie Tran, Lily Gladstone, Bowen Yang, Han Gi-chan
Runtime 102 min
Language English, Korean