Angela (Kelly Marie Tran) and her partner Lee (Lily Gladstone) are trying to start a family via IVF but when their latest attempt fails, they find themselves at a crossroads as they can’t afford to go through the process again. Their closeted friend Min (Han Gi-Chan) is from a wealthy family and he’s desperate to marry his boyfriend Chris (Bowen Yang) to resolve his student visa issues and land a green card. When Chris rejects Min’s proposal, Min surprises everyone by asking Angela to marry him so he can fool his family in exchange for giving her the money she and Lee need for another round of IVF. Complications arrive when Min’s grandmother Ja-Young (Youn Yuh-jung) arrives unexpectedly from Korea with expectations of a spectacular wedding.
‘The Wedding Banquet’ is loosely based on Ang Lee’s classic 1993 film and it’s being billed as a ‘re-imagining’. The basic premise of the film is pretty much the same but director Andrew Ahn, who co-wrote the screenplay with James Schamus, the writer of the original film, has updated it to reflect modern attitudes in society. While the original film is a romantic-comedy, this remake is more of a drama with hardly any laughs to be found. It’s established early on that Angela and Lee have differing opinions about continuing their IVF journey, and Min and Chris aren’t on the same page with their relationship. That forces Angela and Chris together, and Lee and Min as the couples try to navigate the choppy waters ahead.
Min’s proposal to Angela comes out of nowhere, taking everyone by surprise, and while that was the plot of the original film it doesn’t quite work here. Min wants to stay closeted to his family but Angela is already out and proud. Any idea that the two characters could marry so that Min can get a green card is a bit silly. The arrival of Ja-Young quickly leads to an unravelling of the whole situation but there are a couple of surprises there, which I won’t spoil. In the background there’s a sub-plot about Angela and Chris, that threatens to end both relationships, but this turns out to be more of a convenient plot device than anything else.
What ‘The Wedding Banquet’ misses is any sense of joy. The entire film is very downbeat and dare I say a tad depressing. The four characters spend most of the film wallowing in their own misery that the opportunities to lean into the plot’s comedy elements are totally missed. It’s a bit of a waste having a comedian as gifted as Bowen Yang in something like this, as he’s never given the opportunity to shine. Kelly Marie Tran and Lily Gladstone do their best, but they are hampered by the misery of their characters, while Han Gi-Chan is a little too wooden to be convincing as Min. The saving grace is Youn Yuh-jung, who at least injects some energy into this otherwise plodding film.
They often say that remakes are never as good as the originals and in this case, it’s definitely true. ‘The Wedding Banquet’ is a film that didn’t need to be remade and this version doesn’t add anything – if anything, it takes out what made the original so good. The cast does their best but the end result if a film that leaves you feeling a little bit down in the dumps. Personally, I felt cheated at the lack of comedy in a film whose premise should have delivered it in bucketloads.
Cast: Bowen Yang, Lily Gladstone, Kelly Marie Tran, Han Gi-Chan, Joan Chen, Youn Yuh-jung Director: Andrew Ahn Writers: Andrew Ahn, James Schamus Certificate: 15 Duration: 103 mins Released by: Universal Pictures UK Release date: 9th May 2025
