The Wedding Banquet is a new film inspired by Ang Lee’s 1993 comedy with the same title. This 2025 feature follows a similar plot of a grand marriage ceremony between two queer people designed to make their parents proud. When the truth is revealed, there are surprises for everyone involved that will shake the branches of the family tree.
Director Andrew Ahn described the modern version as a reimagining of the original tale during a recent interview. After receiving his MFA for film directing, he began a career in the world of cinema. From short films that told his coming out story to creating his first feature-length project, Spa Night, Ahn’s work continues to evolve. Driveways depicted life in the Midwest and Fire Island highlighted gay vacationers on the East Coast.
The Wedding Banquet is an ensemble piece surrounding the lives of four friends facing society’s expectations. It was co-written by the queer filmmaker and frequent Ang Lee collaborator James Schamus. It stars Bowen Yang, Lily Gladstone, Kelly Marie Tran and Han Gi-chan. The Wedding Banquet premiered at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival and has a general US release this April.
Windy City Times: Is The Wedding Banquet a project you have always wanted to make?
Andrew Ahn: No, I was approached about it. Our producers had an initial conversation with Anita Gou and Caroline Clark from Kindred Spirit who owned the rights to The Wedding Banquet. They asked James Schamus and Joe Pirro if they knew of a filmmaker who would make sense to reimagine The Wedding Banquet. James and Joe had just produced my second feature, Driveways and knew I was a good candidate because I’m a gay Asian who loved the original film.
They put me in touch with Anita and I spoke with her at Sundance in 2019. I had no expectation before that to remake The Wedding Banquet. I rewatched the original movie, although I had seen it many times before. Very significantly, the first time I had seen it was when I was eight years old. It was the first gay film that I’d ever seen, so it holds a special place in my heart. After rewatching it, as great art does, it inspired more art. I was watching it while thinking about all these conversations that I’ve had in the past with my boyfriend about getting married and having kids.
It got me excited, of course, but there was pressure in remaking an Ang Lee movie. It also felt like a very organic thing. I think lots of filmmakers watch other films or listen to some music for inspiration, but I had a very personal connection to the themes of the film. That personalization helped in writing the movie.
What really guided me was modern, queer topics such as now that queer people can be married legally do we really want to be married and do we want to have kids. In the original, they accidentally have a baby. I was interested in the process of seeing a couple planning to have a baby and what that would look like cinematically.
WCT: Has Ang Lee seen the new movie?
AA: He has not seen the finished film. We’re very excited to show it to him. He’s been very supportive of the reimagining and he sent me messages wishing me luck. He’s incredibly busy working on his own movies right now. I am very anxious for him to see it and I think it will happen soon. We just want to get the right screening room at the right moment.
WCT: I love the music of the original film, so I kept waiting for that sweeping music from Mader to come in at some point with your project.
AA: That music is incredible. I love the soundtrack to the original film and the cha-cha comedy of it, too.
I purposefully wanted to give this film its own sonic identity. It was a very hard choice to make because I know how effective the original is. I was careful never to imitate because I felt like imitation in this process would be disrespectful, while being inspired by the first film would be honoring it.
WCT: How hard was it to create some of the long-term relationships needed between the actors?
AA: I worked hard with my casting director, Jenny Jue, who was Bong Joon Ho’s casting director for Okja and Snowpiercer, to make that happen. We looked for actors who had a spirit of generosity in their process. Some of that was by looking at their body of work and some of it was by having conversations with filmmakers who had worked with them in the past. I had my own conversations with everybody. I got a sense of openness and excitement to dive into this project to go on this journey with me from the people who were eventually cast.
WCT: How did you work together to make it seem real?
AA: With both couples, I had them do some work together and rehearse. We didn’t have a lot of time, but I just wanted to see if I could build that intimacy through some exercises. I had each couple think of a secret that they would only know and I had each individual within the couples also have a secret they would never tell their partner.
That was born out of something that happened to me in film school, where I had a professor tell me that I had to know everything about a character. My response was, I don’t know everything about myself.
WCT: With anyone that can change at any time…
AA: Yes, it changes and evolves. If I did know everything about a character, then it would probably be a very two-dimensional character. I actively encouraged my actors to hold secrets from me, because I think that is a useful tool to always go back to and utilize.
WCT: After meeting Lily Gladstone and Bowen Yang in person, I can vouch that they are both nice.
AA: The entire cast is a bunch of sweethearts.
WCT: Were you intimidated by Joan Chen?
AA: I was very scared to meet her because she’s such a legend. She was incredibly sweet when I met her. I had talked to Sean Wang, who directed Didi, and he had told me to not be nervous and abut how nice she is. That was true and we spent our first conversation on Zoom just talking about our families. After the call, she emailed me to say that we didn’t talk about the movie or the role and she felt she had done badly. I explained that I was nervous to talk to her and that I loved our conversation. She gives an incredible performance in the film.
WCT: You made her an LGBT ally in the script.
AA: That was a fun thing to update. People expect an Asian mom to be disapproving of her queer daughter, but in this modern-day tale I thought we should have this character be overly enthusiastic about her gay daughter. I really loved mining that for comedy and drama as well.
WCT: The father was not an ally in the plot. Why did you decide not to have him show up for the ceremony?
AA: Part of that was because Ang Lee did such an incredible job in The Wedding Banquet to talk about fathers and sons. Lee made a whole father knows best cinematic trilogy with Pushing Hands, The Wedding Banquet and Eat Drink Man Woman.
I decided not to make it about the father figure and instead focused on matriarchs. James and I talked about the idea of bringing Grandpa from Korea a lot. Ultimately, what we decided was that we didn’t want this film to have to deal with homophobia, which felt like an easy villain. While that would up the stakes in the drama, it was more interesting to have a more nuanced relationship between Min and his grandmother. What may seem like homophobia is just her concern to try to protect her grandson. That felt more true and something worth fighting for to me.
Everyone is cordially invited to The Wedding Banquet, which opens in United States theaters beginning on April 18.