Andrew Ahn’s contemporary reworking of Ang Lee’s Oscar-nominated classic The Wedding Banquet—with a new screenplay by Ahn co-written with the original film’s writer James Schamus—is a delightfully warm and uplifting rom-com with heart and soul, and an ensemble cast to die for.
Shifting the setting west from New York to Seattle, Ahn and Schamus also expand the range of characters from the gay male couple at the centre of the 90s version to an extended queer family. Back in 1993 when Lee’s film was released, legal marriage was an exclusively heterosexual business in the United States, and this new work incorporates the pressures and expectations of queer couples now being able to officially tie the knot, along with having children becoming far more common over the past thirty years, with all of the complexities that can bring.
Angela (Kelly Marie Tran) and her partner Lee (Lily Gladstone) are unmarried, but live together in the house that Lee grew up in and inherited from her family, who were proud to have built and owned their own place as Indigenous folks in a colonized America. As a result of Gladstone’s input, Lee’s character is Duwamish, which remains a federally unrecognized tribe. Underscoring just how important becoming a mother is to Lee, that home has now been mortgaged in order to cover the high cost of IVF treatment, which has so far been unsuccessful.
Professional birder Chris (Bowen Yang), Angela’s best friend since college—they even hooked up during freshman orientation, which they have tried their best to forget—lives in a quaint and cosy cabin in the garden of Angela and Lee’s home with his talented artist boyfriend Min (Han Gi-Chan, making his English-language screen debut), binging on episodes of Real Housewives. It’s an idyllically queer living setup giving Barbary Lane vibes. Blurring the lines between chosen and biological family, Chris is close with his queer nonbinary cousin Kendall (a wonderfully spirited Bobo Le) who is often along for the ride on nights out on the city’s queer scene which are vibrantly depicted.
Angela’s overbearing mother May Chen (Twin Peaks legend Joan Chen, who had been in talks with Ang Lee to appear in the original film at one point) is a local PFLAG award-winner, straining to overcompensate for her initial unfavourable reaction to her daughter coming out by coming on a little too strong as an ally, and loving the limelight. She even suggests that Angela should get makeup tips from a drag queen in the opening scene, while her daughter holds her tongue—for the time being at least—but her resentment is clearly close to reaching its boiling point.
With the lives of these characters and the dynamics between them succinctly established, and the history between them palpable, things begin to get complicated when Min’s wealthy and intimidatingly stoic grandmother Ja-Young (Youn Yuh-Jung) video calls from Korea and makes him an offer he can’t refuse. That is, not if he wants to remain in the US when his student visa expires, keep his allowance flowing and his considerable inheritance secure. This leads Min to pop the question—first to Chris, who turns him down—and then to Angela, in return for funding another round of IVF treatment.
In a nice touch, Angela’s mother is hugely disappointed in her daughter announcing that she is going to marry a man. What will her friends at PFLAG think?! While Min wants to keep the proceedings simple with a quick, no-frills city hall ceremony, but things spin out of his control when his grandmother arrives and demands a traditional Korean wedding for photographic evidence of the event to keep Min’s grandfather and the Korean press happy.
In a fun nod to the original movie, the imminent arrival of Min’s grandmother calls for a speedy “de-queering” of Angela and Lee’s home. Faced with this task, a stressed out Angela yells out, “Everything in this house is gay!” Production designer Charlotte Royer and property master Morgan Greenwell have filled the women’s home with LGBTQ+ movies, literature, and artwork, and it is a delight to spot the DVD and book covers that are being hidden out of sight. Included is a glimpse of Elliot Page’s memoir Pageboy, Céline Sciamma’s Portrait of a Lady on Fire and, playfully, even Kelly Reichardt’s Certain Women starring Lily Gladstone!
We immediately buy into any rom-com contrivances—which, let’s face it are part of the genre’s appeal and charm in any case—because of how exquisitely well-written and performed these characters are. Evidencing Ahn and Schamus’ strong script, these are living, breathing, believable and multifaceted people who we see at work, and with their family and friends; characters we can invest in and imagine existing outside of the world of the film. Not only does the comedy really hit, with some howl-out-loud hilarious moments, but there is poignant, emotional depth in these relationships and situations too, especially the IVF storyline which is delicately handled.
Putting off completing his graduate studies—declaring that “queer theory takes the joy out of being gay”—Chris’ whole life is in a state of suspended animation to some degree, something that becomes increasingly apparent in his reluctance to commit to his relationship with Min. Yang, with his dreamboat good looks, is giving serious leading man energy here, drawing us in with his vulnerability and killing us with his comic timing.
Meanwhile, Min has no interest in being handed a lucrative corporate job in the family business, despite its creative title. Instead, he is passionate about his art and is achieving success with it. (Min’s beautiful quilt work that we see in the film is actually made by Julia Kwon). In one of the film’s most touching scenes, a two-hander between Min and his grandmother, having observed the love and skill he puts into his art, she compares it to the way he has surrounded himself with a queer chosen family, with the absence of a biological one in Seattle. Youn Yuh-Jung is magnificent in the role, giving the kind of delicate and understated yet searingly powerful performance, full of humanity, that isn’t generally associated with a rom-com, which both grounds and elevates the entire film and it is a joy to see the rest of the cast interact with her.
Ahn brings that same affecting tenderness and insight with which he directed Fire Island, offering a heartwarming love letter to chosen family. While cinematographer Ki Jin Kim, who previously collaborated with Ahn on Spa Night and Driveways, delivers handheld camera work that keeps things feeling grounded and alive, and although the film is beautifully shot it never risks feeling rom-com glossy. Funny and moving, not only is this a gorgeously written and directed film, it offers just the healing queer tonic we need right now to revitalize our spirits.
By James Kleinmann
The Wedding Banquet received its world premiere at the 41st Sundance Film Festival and its international premiere at the 39th BFI Flare: London LGBTQIA+ Film Festival and opens theatrically in the United States on April 18th, 2025 via Bleecker Street.
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