The Wedding Banquet review by Bobby Blakey
In one of his earliest films director Ang Lee wrote and directed the box office hit The Wedding Banquet that helped kickstart his directing career to great success. Now Fire Island director Andrew Ahn is bringing the film to a whole new generation with a reimagining of the classic film starring Bowen Yang, Lily Gladstone, Kelly Marie Tran, Han Gi-Chan, Joan Chen, and Youn Yuh-Jung. Could this film have its own voice in this familiar territory, or will it fail to complete the ceremony?
The Wedding Banquet follows Angela and her partner Lee who have been unlucky with their IVF treatments but can’t afford to pay for another round. Meanwhile their friend Min, the closeted scion of a multinational corporate empire, has plenty of family money but a soon-to-expire student visa. When his commitment-phobic boyfriend Chris rejects his proposal, Min makes the offer to Angela instead: a green card marriage in exchange for funding Lee’s IVF. But their plans to quietly elope are upended when Min’s skeptical grandmother flies in from Korea unannounced, insisting on an all-out wedding extravaganza.
It's been forever since I saw the original film so honestly, I had forgotten about it and didn’t realize until about halfway through that it was a reimagining of it. It is just similar enough to see its connection while having its own voice for the current climate of its focus. The trailer led me to believe it was going to be a lot more comedy based, and it does offer up plenty of laughs, but this is so much more. The balance of trying to find their place in these relationships, parenthood and culture fuse together to create something that works well.
The ensemble cast are all great, bringing all the imperfections, trauma and life struggles to their performances and relationships. Instead of everything being all roses these are two couples that truly care about each other but also have their own issues to get through with each other and their own lives. The cultural aspect
that is explored here really adds a depth that might have been lost otherwise. I think having two couples in the mix as opposed to one and an individual as in the original also puts more stress and ultimately bigger stakes in how this all affects everyone involved.
I was not only impressed with the cast and film itself, but I wasn’t expecting it to hit as heavy as it ended up doing. It’s the kind of film that despite it dealing with a very specific relationship dynamic, it is still relatable on every level. We have all been through various relationship issues or circumstances that could either bring you closer or tear you apart and if you can see that here beyond the type of relationships then it is all of us just with some extra chaos thrown in.
This is one of those films that had a big hill to climb just to live up to the original and not only did that, but carved its own path bringing all the heart, laughs, love and struggles to really smack you in the feels. I enjoyed this film a lot more than I expected to and hope it finds the audience it deserves.
Decide for yourself and check out The Wedding Banquet in theaters now from Bleeker Street.