PalCinema Review: The Wedding Banquet
The remake of the 90s Taiwanese film features Bowen Yang and Lily Gladstone in key roles but do they help the dated nature of the story?
April 17, 2025
FILM: THE WEDDING BANQUET
DIRECTED BY: ANDREW AHN
STARRING: BOWEN YANG, LILY GLADSTONE, HAN GI-CHAN
RATING: 3 out of 4 stars
By Dan Pal
It’s been thirty-three years since Ang Lee co-wrote and directed the Oscar-nominated Taiwanese film The Wedding Banquet. Given the changes in culture, gay marriage, and more prominent lesbian and gay actors in the U.S. today, it seems like the time might be right for a remake. While this is generally true, the basic set up of the original story involving a marriage of convenience for a non-heterosexual couple feels a bit dated today even though director Andrew Ahn attempts to contemporize the narrative.
In the new version, Angela (Kelly Marie Tran) and Lee (Oscar nominee Lily Gladstone) are trying to have a baby without a lot of success, causing them to begin depleting their personal finances. They have two tenants, Chris (Bowen Yang) and Min (Han Gi-Chan), who have their own issues. Min wants to get married. Chris isn’t ready and there’s a fear that Min might lose his family’s wealth. Reflecting on today’s immigrant situation, Min needs a green card to stay in the country. What if Min marries Angela instead, thus potentially solving all their problems!
The plan comes across as something we might have seen if the original film had been remade in the 1990s. One might wonder, given the legalization of same sex marriages, why Chris and Min, who’ve been together for five years, aren’t already married. (Chris has his own issues.) The plot begins to really feel a bit forced and dated when Min’s grandmother, played by Oscar winner for Minari, Youn Yuh-jung, comes to America from Korea to find exactly what is going on with Min.
This section of the film feels particularly annoying to anyone who has been through and beyond the set-up of a plot that feels like The Bird Cage. The foursome here begin to “de-queer” the house to not raise grandma’s suspicions. Min even enters his home with a “Honey, I’m home” line expecting to see Angela taking on the role of his fiancé. Maybe in certain parts of the country LGBT couples might still resort to something like this, but it feels too much like an earlier, less accepting era.
The narrative then adds an old-time rom com style hook-up which makes the situation even more complex. It is, however, grandma who goes through the biggest shift, perhaps a bit unrealistically, but it helps move the plot in a direction that might be more satisfying for contemporary LGBT audiences.
The cast is fine, although the biggest name actors in the film, Yang and Gladstone, have the least interesting roles. Yang, known for his outrageousness and broad comedy on Saturday Night Live, is pretty boring here. He’s actually called on to handle some of the more dramatic scenes in the film. Gladstone comes across as a bit more feminine than we’ve seen in films such as Killers of the Flower Moon and The Unknown Country with her character desperate to have a baby.
Han Gi-Chan has perhaps the more challenging role which requires him to balance languages and different cultural sensibilities. Youn Yuh-jung has to express a few different sides to her role as grandmother which the actress skillfully and subtly reveals.
The general mood of the film is lighter than a drama but it could have been a bit more entertaining if it heightened the humor associated with the various cultural differences between the characters. Bowen Yang’s natural comic talents are wasted without it.
The Wedding Banquet is not entirely a disappointment though. Ultimately, the film does embrace the 21st Century advancements of gay marriage and parenthood as well as the blending of a non-traditional family. In today’s socio-political climate, that is important to see on screen.
The Wedding Banquet opens theatrically this week.
What do you think? Does the film interest you?
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It’s generally a genial film with likable people. I guess the best that can be said is that it gives us a look back at how it was even though it is set in current times. My big question after watching it, though, is . . . where’s the banquet?? There is none and certainly no wedding banquet. Hmmmm.
Ang Lee's version is one of my absolute favorite films. Not in a rush to see this one, though I love Gladstone's work. Maybe I'll catch it on a plane when it trickles down to there.