Bold strategy Andrew Ahn. The talented director has decided for the last couple films to remake classics in his own image. Fire Island would have shocked Jane Austen at that wild Pride & Prejudice adaptation. And now Ahn is coming for Ang Lee. The Wedding Banquet 2025 edition shows the power of that particular story, and how modernizing actually helps prove it stands the test of time. I can’t wait for Ahn’s Pulp Fiction next: that’s gonna be something crazy.
Two Seattle couples are going through life ruts at the moment. Lee (Lily Gladstone) and Angela (Kelly Marie Tran) just had another very expensive IVF attempt fail, delaying the start of their family another year and loan. Gay couple Chris (Bowen Yang) and Min (Han Gi-chan) are waiting for the “right time” to move their relationship into marriage territory. Well, that time comes for Min, but maybe not Chris, as Min’s grandmother Ja-young (Yuh Jung Youn) ultimatums him with ending his visa and moving back to South Korea. Min panicks, saying he’s found a girlfriend, offering Angela another IVF payment in exchange to fake a relationship to keep grandma at bay. Except, as you might expect, Ja-young might want to meet this sudden new girlfriend and make a big deal out of it to her rich family and friends.
For Ahn this movie is anchored by his two main relationships, and making them as believable as possible. One half of each of the couples is a reliable known quantity. Bowen Yang was in Fire Island and was ready for another Ahn project; there’s not as much to Chris as the other leads, but Yang’s innate likability and sweetness allow him to have fun with the role and deliver necessary comedic relief in between the heavier stuff. On the other side, Lily Gladstone just blew Leo DiCaprio off the screen with her Oscar nominated film, so she can handle an intimate character drama in her sleep, especially with the meaty script she’s given here. The mini gamble from Ahn was that Han Gi-chan and Kelly Marie Tran could carry their end of the bargain. They both do more than that. Han is just a walking open heart: a wide eyed innocent who wants to be loved and is easy to be loved watching him. Tran is the big winner here; all that flack the Star Wars fans mercilessly laid at her feet she rectifies with her performance here, taking the horrible “wet blanket” girlfriend and making her much more interesting, vulnerable, and nuanced than that. Both relationships feel like they came from the real world, especially the wonderful Lee/Angela one, which deserves its own film. And even bigger than that, Ahn makes their relationship really feel like an emotional foursome, with the 4 leads unafraid to get messy emotionally, but have funny, grounded characters beats with the outcomes.
But there’s only one Oscar winner in the cast. Yuh Jung Youn is positioned in the trailers as the antagonist, ready to torpedo this little Seattle Square’s hopes and dreams. Well she does do that, but Ahn’s script in that first scene jettisons Ja-young to the top of the most interesting characters in the movie. While the main cast has lots of emotional moments that really hit home, everytime Youn is in a scene something truly beautiful happens, and only grows with each passing moment we spend time with her. As you might expect, the third act is filled with all the emotional payoffs, good, and bad, that are teased in the first 2 parts of The Wedding Banquet. But the one that hits the hardest is headlined by Youn, delivering one of the great speeches of the year so far. She gives this movie everything, proving that Minari Oscar win was no fluke, and she should be in more things ASAP.
Put a bunch of really good actors together and a simple premise, and let them cook. That’s a smart idea Andrew Ahn, including challenging all of them with classic entertainment history…from an LGBTQIA point of view. This all leads probably to the Kelly Marie Tran led Star Wars movie where she reclaims that franchise on her own terms. If it makes you feel better Kelly, you were in the best new Star Wars movie since 2015.