Two-time Academy Award winning director Ang Lee’s 1993 queer rom com The Wedding Banquet is a classic in arthouse circles, but I had never seen it, and while I was attempting to play catch up in time for director Andrew Ahn’s new remake of the film, I was surprised to find that Ang Lee’s film cannot be streamed anywhere, so I could not adequately prepare for this movie in time for its release. I’ve requested the physical DVD of the film from my local library, so I’ll see it eventually, and maybe after I do I’ll add a paragraph to this review if I feel the two need to be compared. 

And yet, as a fan of Andrew Ahn’s filmography, most specifically Driveways and Fire Island, I found plenty of reasons to be excited about The Wedding Banquet (2025). And I was honestly a bit concerned, as the film’s trailers looked like they’d lean into the slapstick humor, or the easy humor. But that might just have more to do with the way movie trailers are cut and edited in American cinema. I was thrilled to find my fears to be totally unwarranted, and Ahn’s film is emotionally perceptive, more quiet than loud, but full of great humor and genuine pathos. Even as a film that can’t help but exist in the shadows of something that came before it, I imagine these two films must have a lot of differences, because there’s a distinct sensibility present in Andrew Ahn’s previous films that operates as the baseline for the humor and the sense of place and the overall narrative here. I absolutely loved The Wedding Banquet (2025) and it’s absolutely good enough to stand on its own.

Angela (Kelly Marie Tran) lives with her partner Lee (Lily Gladstone) in the Seattle home Lee inherited from a deceased relative. She has a somewhat strained relationship with her mother May (Joan Chen), who is accepting of her daughter, but wasn’t always. Their longtime friends, fellow queer couple Chris (Bowen Yang) and Min (Han Gi-chan) live in their garage. Angela and Lily have been trying to conceive their first child through IVF, and have been facing difficulties. Min is a Korean immigrant who is in the country via a student visa, which is about to expire, and his wealthy grandmother Ja-Young (Youn Yuh-Jung) wants him to work for the family business, which he’s not into. Min devises a plan that would allow both couples to get what they want, but chaos soon follows. 

There’s a lot of inherent wackiness in the setup for this story, and I was worried this might delve into the easier slapstick-y kind of humor, and forego some of the heart and pathos that I’ve been accustomed to with Andrew Ahn’s films. Well, I’m thrilled to say Ahn has not lost his touch, and if anything he’s fine tuned it. Ahn’s film feels simultaneously old-fashioned and progressive, and also is smart enough to not paint any of its characters like nice people. Everyone here is complicated and everyone is sometimes sweet and considerate of those in their lives and sometimes these people are opportunistic and mean. Just like people in real life. But the film’s overall message of the importance of chosen family, permeates throughout the entire thing. And there is so much here that feels emotionally true and thoughtfully constructed.

We have six main characters here, and each performance is spectacular and brings something different to the table. Perhaps most striking is the work from Kelly Marie Tran, the actress I always associate with the unwarranted, racist and sexist hate train she dealt with after being cast in a Star Wars movie. Tran is an incredible performer, and the emotional impact she finds with this character and the many dilemmas she faces, cannot be understated. Tran is finding surprising avenues to this character’s emotional journey and even though she’s dealing with a lot, Tran’s expressive face keeps the drama of it grounded and the impact is powerful. She’s got an electric chemistry with the terrific Lily Gladstone, who recently almost won the Oscar for Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon. Gladstone’s whole vibe reminds me so vividly of one of my best friends from high school, and there is something really warm and comforting and specific about her presence here. 

And I had never seen Bowen Yang, famous for his work on Saturday Night Live, walk the kind of emotional tightrope this script sets up for him, and he’s so good here. There is a quiet vulnerability to him for a lot of it, and for the rest, he’s just so funny. He’s bringing comic relief, but he’s also involved in the emotional core of this narrative. His chemistry with Han Gi-chan is off the charts. It’s important to note that this is Gi-chan’s first movie. He’s been involved in a few popular Korean series, but this is his first feature film, and you never would have known it. He’s got terrific comedic timing and brings a lot of heart to his character that is necessary if the viewer is meant to feel the emotional weight of this narrative. There are going to be viewers familiar with his work going into this film, but to me he feels like an exciting new presence in film, and I can’t wait to see what he does next.

Joan Chen is a prolific Chinese actress with a number of illustrious credits to her name, but she came across my radar with Sean Wang’s excellent 2023 Sundance hit Dìdi, where she delivered an all-timer monologue towards that film’s conclusion. Her character here is fascinating, and the less I tell you about it the better, but she’s giving you a complete emotional journey, and that’s a lot to do for a supporting character. And the terrific Youn Yuh-Jung, a recent Oscar winner for the film Minari, reminds you why she earned that Oscar. She’s got a few monologues that completely change the game of this narrative, but also give this character, who we don’t really know all that well for the majority, a rich and complex backstory and inner life. And she’s absolutely incredible here. The cast of The Wedding Banquet seems to be playing in their own version of the Acting Olympics, but one where everybody gets big moments to shine, and where each member gets to take home a trophy.

Andrew Ahn’s previous film Fire Island, released exclusively to Hulu during the pandemic, which also starred Bowen Yang, worked its way around genre trappings and subverted cliches in a lot of similar ways that The Wedding Banquet does. There are so many ways this film could have gone wrong, or could have come across as glib or insincere, and Ahn’s script, co-written with James Schamus, who also co-wrote Ang Lee’s film, is always more interested in these people than the situation at hand. And there are a lot of ways this could have descended into slapstick, or sitcommy humor, and it remarkably never does. And yet, the film is never light on comedy. There are plenty of laughs in Ahn’s film, but his script never takes the easy way out. He’s one of our most exciting filmmakers working today, and I hope he gets to keep making films as character driven and emotionally rich as this for a very long time.

So, despite never having seen the original 1993 film, I found so much to enjoy in the remake of The Wedding Banquet. It’s an emotionally rewarding and riotously funny farce that sneaks up on you emotionally in ways you couldn’t have been expecting. Every actor involved here is bringing something very unique to the proceedings, and everyone is painted with the same complexity and emotional depth, giving each actor plenty to work with. The film’s cultural precision and queer perspective makes for an experience that feels incredibly specific but also universal, giving just about any viewer something to recognize emotionally. There’s a lot of empathy here, but also a biting sense of humor. A few weeks ago, I reviewed Roshan Sethi’s terrific queer rom-com A Nice Indian Boy, and I think if you can find a theater that is showing both films right now, they would make for a hell of a double feature. But even if you can’t, The Wedding Banquet is absolutely worth a trip to the movies. It’s got laughter and tears, meaning and catharsis, and it’s one of the better films I’ve seen this year.