The Wedding Banquet (15)
Cast: Bowen Yang, Kelly Marie Tran, Lily Gladstone, Youn Yuh-jung, Han Gi-Chan, Joan ChenGenre: Comedy
Author(s): James Schamus, Andrew Ahn
Director: Andrew Ahn
Release Date: 09/05/2025
Running Time: 103mins
Country: US
Year: 2025
Lee undergoes a second round of expensive IVF with her partner Angela but their hopes of starting a family together are cruelly dashed. Emotionally and financially spent, the couple commiserate with Angela's best friend Chris, who lives in their converted garage with his student artist boyfriend, Min. Min's visa is about to expire so he hatches a seemingly harmless plan to marry Angela for a green card and in exchange, he will leverage his vast family fortune to pay for a third round of IVF.
LondonNet Film Review
The Wedding Banquet (15) Film Review from LondonNet
More than 30 years ago, when Oscar-winning director Ang Lee released the original version of The Wedding Banquet, gay marriage and same-sex adoption hadn’t been legalised, the HIV and Aids epidemic continued to generate headlines, and Hollywood was poised to release the first mainstream film dealing with the virus: Philadelphia starring Tom Hanks and Denzel Washington. James Schamus, co-writer of the 1993 film, revisits the culture clash comedy through a contemporary lens in a crowd-pleasing collaboration with director Andrew Ahn that boasts two grand dames of Asian cinema: Joan Chen and Youn Yuh-jung, who deservedly won an Oscar as the twinkly-eyed grandmother in Minari…
Relocated from New York to Seattle, the updated Wedding Banquet walks a line between sappy sentimentality and heartfelt teariness, particularly in scenes involving Yuh-jung and her on-screen grandson played by Han Gi-chan, who fears disclosing his sexuality will be met with his family’s rejection. “I can’t make you the grandson I wanted you to be,” she tenderly notes, armed with understanding words that many members of the LGBT+ community yearn to hear when they come out. The theatricality of a Korean wedding ceremony in traditional costume, including a moment when the bride piggybacks on the groom and he must confidently carry her around the room, provides a rich source of humour in a second half that tries a little too hard to tie up narrative threads like neatly pulled bows atop the wedding gifts.
Lee (Lily Gladstone) undergoes a second round of expensive IVF with her partner Angela (Kelly Marie Tran) but their hopes of starting a family together are cruelly dashed. Emotionally and financially spent, the couple commiserate with Angela’s best friend Chris (Bowen Yang), who lives in their converted garage with his student artist boyfriend, Min (Gi-chan).
Min’s visa is about to expire so he hatches a seemingly harmless plan to marry Angela for a green card and in exchange, he will leverage his vast family fortune to pay for a third round of IVF. “You have mother issues. It’s not the same as motherhood issues,” Lee assures Angela, referencing the fractious relationship with her mother May (Chen). Min’s plan is complicated when his grandmother Ja-young (Yuh-jung) announces a surprise visit to America and declares a simple ceremony at the local courthouse will not suffice for her image-conscious clan.
The Wedding Banquet is a warm, comforting hug of a romantic comedy that plays to the strengths of the ensemble cast. Tran sheds the lioness’s share of tears on screen and is the film’s emotional core but she still snaffles a few salty one-liners. Ahn and Schamus’s script revisits intergenerational strife but now gets to explore same-sex parenting, promoting female characters to the fore.
– Kim Hu
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