The Wedding Banquet (R21)

Starring Han Gi-chan, Kelly Marie Tran, Bowen Yang, Lily Gladstone, Joan Chen, Youn Yuh-jung

Directed by Andrew Ahn

In 1993, director Ang Lee and writer James Schamus made the acclaimed rom com, The Wedding Banquet.

A gay dude in a relationship fakes a marriage and a Chinese wedding banquet to a woman to appease his traditionally minded Taiwanese parents while helping her get a green card in America.

Now in our more progressive times, Schamus teams up with new director Andrew Ahn (Fire Island) to reboot this tale into an entertaining, love-affirming but more sensitive, more internalising pic with not one, but two gay couples. One male, the other female who live together as really close pals in a main house next to a guesthouse.

Well, maybe there's a little too much internalising here as to be somewhat unreachable. Boy, you haven't seen folks yak out their issues so frankly as in this flick. Across sexes, across generations, across culture, across clanging lion dancers by its well-fitted, unified cast. “None of us are good enough alone,” goes the observant truth.

It's two couples perhaps because, amid this anti-woke Trumpian age, the stand of gay rights needs to be doubly reinforced.

The gals — lab scientist Angela (Star Wars: The Last Jedi's Kelly Marie Tran) and social-work head Lee (Killers Of The Flower Moon's Lily Gladstone) — are trying for a baby via unsuccessful IVF.

While super wealthy student-artist Min (Korean pretty boy Han Gi-chan's highly effective big-screen debut) needs to extend his visa. But his beau, Chris (Saturday Night Live's Bowen Yang curtailing wackier instincts), is a cautious bird watcher, a preserver of comforting sameness, who's reluctant to marry him.

The win-win scheme is to fake a marriage between Min and Angela to placate the former's business-tycoon grandparents in Korea and pay for Lee's fertility treatment. The lose-lose Seth Rogen's Knocked Up mess-up is Chris bedding Angela in a drunken abdication of sexual preference. “You get to be the straight drunk girl,” Angela is egged on at a raging LGBTQ party.

The Wedding Banquet: (from left) Kelly Marie Tran, Lily Gladstone, Han Gi-chan, and Bowen Yang are best pals conspiring to fake a marriage. 

Duplicity, even in 2025, is still needed for hostility. Min hasn't outed himself to his conservative family because “My grandfather is the biggest gay hater in Korea.”

Here's the deal.

Times have indeed changed. And this remake captures that in both lively and quiet spades. Becoming less a rom-com pressured by society and more a mature grown-up drama framed by personality.

Circa legalised same-sex marriage in the US now with cast members being actually gay, The Wedding Banquet 2.0 stages its comical sweeps while holding pensive moments.

Angela throws up at a staid, very orderly Korean-style wedding ceremony instead of the raucous Chinese dinner in the first film. The queer decor — wall paintings, books, virtually everything unique in the house — needs to be removed in a jiffy, a la the 1993 original, when the Korean grandma, Mrs Hyun (Minari's Oscar-winner Youn Juh-jung in another attention-grabbing astute-visitor role), shows up unexpectedly as nobody's fool.

Just as the current young people, updated by co-writer Schamus, are now more serious and less jokey with real, relatable problems. His characters handle their interpersonal dynamics as normal uncertain individuals with normal unworked-out matters about love and conflict. The Great Un-gay Scam here, notwithstanding.

The direct-action Lee wants a baby right now. In contrast to the simmering Angela whose past beef with her over-compensating, previously neglectful mom, May (Joan Chen in a funny, enthusiastic best-gay-ally role), makes her slow-cook her decisions.

Meanwhile, Chris refuses to commit due to a fear of spoiling things for Min. Just as his eager boyfriend piles on the pleas and kisses to hear wedding bells. FYI. Korean TV heartthrob Han's spot-on Americanisms are apparently acquired from watching Sesame Street and kiddie TV shows, having never been to an English-speaking country before.

The ending in this gay banquet may be too gaily convenient. We don't laugh so much with this version. But we get to think a lot more. Motivated especially by two women of differing ages.

Tran's Angela, tackling modern unsureness, and Youn's Grandma, serving ancient wisdom, make terrific diversity in a rainbow world.

That is perfect for any changing banquet. (3.5/5 stars)

Photo: Luka Cyprian/Bleecker Street