“The Wedding Banquet” remake reimagines joy and queer identity

By Erin Chew

The name Andrew Ahn has made the rounds over the past few years. An extremely talented film director and screenwriter with big film projects to his name (Spa Night, Driveways, Fire Island), his remake of Ang Lee’s 1993 film The Wedding Banquet opened this weekend to positive reviews scoring an 88% from reviewers and 83% from the general public on Rotten Tomatoes.

We spoke to his star-studded cast about working with Ahn, taking on Lee’s classic and its themes of navigating cultural identity, family expectations and queer love.

Bowen Yang (Saturday Night Live, Wicked, Fire Island), plays the commitment-phobic boyfriend Chris. For Yang, family is chosen and not always defined by blood relations.

RELATED:Check out our review of the film

“As a queer Asian man, I am always looking for projects and opportunities to highlight our visibility and to show the world that we exist- and this film remake is perfect in demonstrating this. I think in the current political climate where our sexual, religious and radicalized identities are used as wedge political issues to divide, a film like this which is light-hearted, yet focusing on these important issues is needed in awareness building and most importantly showing how complex identities and lives can still be fun and messy at the same time”.

The film is all about accepting, forgiving and showing love. These concepts were very important for Kelly Marie Tran (Raya and the Last Dragon, Star Wars: Episode VIII- The Last Jedi), who recently came out as a queer Asian American.

She plays Angela, a lesbian who agrees to a green card marriage in exchange for receiving expensive IVF treatments for her lover Lee. For Tran, The Wedding Banquet mirrored her personal life.

“This film is an adventure as it is all about what a ‘chosen’ family would do for love. This is a theme I can relate to in real life because doing things for love requires bravery, and that is what it took for me to come out in public as a queer Asian American”, Tran expressed.

“To remake an Ang Lee film is also courageous and that could only come out of the creative and talented mind of Andrew Ahn. The film also focuses on moments, and how each character in their own unique way creates their own lovely moment”.

Staying on the topic of finding joy and creating moments, The Wedding Banquet was the first Hollywood film Korean actor Han Gi-Chan has been involved in – and what a film to be a part of. Being a household name in Korean film and TV, coming to the US and working on this film as one of the main protagonists is an opportunity of a lifetime for him.

Han describes his experience working with Yang, Tran and others as a dream and an adventure in finding himself and understand his own Korean family expectations more.

“I still feel I am dreaming, even though it has been awhile since we finished filming The Wedding Banquet. I feel I share a lot of characteristics with my character ‘Min’ because he has to fulfill the relationship and family expectations of his grandmother and for me it is living up to the expectations set by my own parents”.

That grandmother, as played by Yuon Yuh-jing ( Minari, Pachinko) surprises them with an extravagant Korean wedding banquet. The plot twist adds to the film’s comedic element.

“To be able to make us actors relate to our characters and the story is all due to Andrew Ahn who has a deep understanding of Korean culture, traditions and expectations. I think I have been extremely lucky to be able to learns from all the cast and from film directors like Andrew”, Han passionately discussed.

Despite not being Asian American, Oscar-nominated actress Lily Gladstone (Billions, Reservation Dogs, First Cow) who plays Angela’s romantic partner Lee, being part of this film allowed her to make her character whomever she wanted Lee to be – as Lee’s ethnicity was not specific. Being of Piegan Blackfeet and Nez Perce background on her Father’s side, Gladstone decided to indigenize Lee, as a reflection of herself.

“Being apart of The Wedding Banquet allowed me to learn more about myself and how I navigate my own relationships. It was fun playing Angela’s partner and being able to act out some of the sweet and thoughtful scenes. Playing Lee also gave me the opportunity to indigenize her and that way I was able to play out my native identity and feel so much more grounded”.

“As having Native American blood, the themes of strong family unit are so important and that is how I resonated with the film. I love how this film shows what family means when it is chosen and what family means when it is biological – very poignant”, Gladstone stated.

Finally, the most important aspect of this film is how it normalizes love and queerness, something which is hardly represented authentically in Asian and Asian American culture. Having a majority queer Asian cast is a major stride in ensuring adequate and layered representation and having both Yang and Tran play the primary roles in the cast with Ahn at the helm – well this is probably one of the best ways to do so.

This was an important point for Yang who pointed out that love and queerness was most prominent in scenes where it was more domestic and intimate. It wasn’t necessarily through major declarations of love etc.

“You know, it is these everyday moments which make a film complex and deep, and I think that is the talent of Andrew and of course the legend Ang Lee who were able to show this via a strong script. For me the love and queerness was shown in how the Korean culture was shown – whether it was admiring the beautiful Hanbok, or communicating with cultural sensitivities”.

For Tran the normalization of love and queerness was through her learning about the stories and emotional weight her character Angela, who had a strained relationship with her own mother, May Chen, played by Joan Chen (Didi, Lust, Caution) and going through the IVF journey.

“I definitely learned so much about myself through playing Angela. It is funny because prior to this film, I have never really had any interactions with Joan, and now that she played my mom, it was such an eye opening experience. Joan in real life has a childish nature to her, but when she acts it is so amazing. As a mother herself, she bought so much to the film, and the relationship between May and Angela could only be possible through the talents of Joan”.

The Wedding Banquet has now been released in the theaters across the US.