Ang Lee’s THE WEDDING BANQUET – awarded with the Golden Bear and Oscar nominated – wasn’t just the Taiwanese director’s breakthrough, it was also a small and important milestone in the depiction of Asian and homosexual characters on screen. The film left a mark on the Korean-American filmmaker Andrew Ahn when he was a child – and in the new THE WEDDING BANQUET he now tells a similar, albeit significantly modernized, story inspired by it.

When the student visa of gay Korean Min (Han Gi-chan) runs out, he proposes to his boyfriend Chris (Bowen Yang) in order to stay and so he doesn’t have to enter the family business back at home. But Chris isn’t ready for marriage, and so Min suggests a deal to lesbian Angela (Kelly Marie Tran): in exchange for a sham marriage, he offers to pay for her and her partner Lee's (Lily Gladstone) next in vitro fertilization treatment. But when Min’s grandmother from Korea (Youn Yuh-jung), who knows nothing about his homosexuality, arrives, things become very complicated.

Like in the original, James Schamus co-wrote the screenplay for this as, and he and Ahn succeeded in telling a story that is clearly more comedic than its predecessor and also deals with a lot more themes and questions of identity. This highwire act of seriousness, silliness, and romcom conventions is successful because the film is full of truthfulness and, above all, warmth, both in decidedly queer and general human matters. Moreover, the excellent ensemble (which also includes Joan Chen) brings so much charm and liveliness that this update of THE WEDDING BANQUET will also make your heart sing.

Patrick Heidmann (INDIEKINO MAGAZIN)

Translation: Elinor Lewy