"The Wedding Banquet" Full Trailer: Bowen Yang, Han Gi-chan, Lily Gladstone, and Kelly Marie Tran Star in Andrew Ahn’s Modern Reimagining of Ang Lee’s 1993 Indie Classic
Director Andrew Ahn (Fire Island) updates Ang Lee’s 1993 classic with a fresh spin on love, family, and a hilariously complicated wedding scam.
Sometimes, a movie is only as good as its cast. That’s not to say a strong ensemble guarantees a great time at the movies, but it’s certainly a good indicator that a film might be worth your attention.
It also helps when that cast includes an Oscar winner (Minari's Youn Yuh-jung), an Oscar nominee (Killers of the Flower Moon's Lily Gladstone), a four-time Emmy nominee (SNL's Bowen Yang), a Star Wars alum (The Last Jedi's Kelly Marie Tran), and one of the most elegant actresses of her generation (Twin Peaks and The Last Emperor's Joan Chen). Now that’s a cast any film would be lucky to have.
In The Wedding Banquet, filmmaker Andrew Ahn, known for Hulu's acclaimed queer comedy Fire Island, takes on the herculean task of updating and modernizing a '90s indie rom-com classic—one that marked the arrival of Oscar-winning filmmaker Ang Lee (Brokeback Mountain, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon).
The original 1993 film, one of Ang Lee's earliest features, earned an Oscar nomination for Best Foreign Language Film and followed a closeted gay Taiwanese-American man who stages a sham marriage with a female friend to appease his traditional parents. But when his family flies to America to throw an elaborate wedding banquet, things spiral into chaos.
Ahn's updated version keeps the heart of the original but reimagines it with a new twist: the story now revolves around two queer couples—lesbian partners Angela and Lee (Kelly Marie Tran and Lily Gladstone) and gay roommates Min and Chris (Han Gi-chan and Bowen Yang), who all share a house as best friends. Their arrangement? A marriage scam to secure a green card for Min, while Angela and Lee use the wedding money to fund another round of IVF treatments in their desperate attempt to start a family.
But with Min’s student visa about to expire, their carefully laid plan spins out of control when Min’s grandmother (Youn Yuh-jung) catches wind of the wedding and insists on having a lavish, traditional ceremony with all the trimmings. As the lie grows bigger by the day, they find themselves at a crossroads: come clean to their families or go through with the wedding scam, hoping nothing goes wrong and that everything will somehow work itself out.
The Wedding Banquet premiered earlier this year at Sundance, where it received a strong positive reaction from critics. Here are some samples of what critics had to say about the comedy:
“(Filmmaker Andrew) Ahn has successfully forged a career making both indie productions and bigger, broader fare. The Wedding Banquet fits in the latter category, but some of the quiet introspection from his earlier work still finds its way in here.”
—Carlos Aguilar, Variety
“While the original managed to tap into something new for its time, it is also not untouchable and, as (filmmaker Andrew) Ahn proves so decisively here, was worth revisiting just so we could experience his thoughtful approach.”
—Chase Hutchinson, The Wrap
“The Wedding Banquet is a classic rom-com with modern touches that rarely ring false or feel heavy-handed. The entire ensemble is top-notch, allowing beloved actors like (Lily) Gladstone and (Bowen) Yang to do something slightly different from their usual fare.”
—Taylor Gates, Collider
The Wedding Banquet is hitting theaters nationwide on April 18th. Watch the newly-released full trailer, above.
