Andrew Ahn's remake of 'The Wedding Banquet' falls flat in modern retelling

The reboot of Ang Lee’s queer comedy struggles to recapture the original’s heart and humor.

Kelly Marie Tran, Lily Gladstone, Han Gi-chan, and Bowen Yang. (c) Bleecker Street

By Anna Fadiah and Hayu Andini

Andrew Ahn’s remake of The Wedding Banquet fails to recreate the charm of Ang Lee’s 1993 classic, as the modernized plot and uneven performances struggle to connect emotionally with viewers. The film tries to update the beloved queer comedy for contemporary audiences, but the result is a muddled drama-comedy that neither elicits enough laughs nor delivers genuine emotional depth.

Revisiting Ang Lee’s original premise

Ang Lee’s 1993 film The Wedding Banquet began as a charming farce built on a socially resonant idea. A closeted gay Taiwanese man in New York agrees to a sham marriage with a woman seeking a green card to placate his traditional parents. When his unsuspecting mother and father show up expecting a lavish wedding, the comedic tension builds, but so does a quiet emotional core that humanizes all involved. Lee’s deft hand made this not just a sharp comedy but a heartfelt meditation on culture, family, and personal identity.

It was a striking moment in queer cinema—both deeply specific and widely relatable. Now, over 30 years later, Andrew Ahn steps in to helm a reboot of the same name, hoping to retell the story for today’s audience. While the original film’s themes still resonate, the new version gets bogged down in clunky storytelling and shallow character work.

A contemporary twist that overcomplicates

The premise remains vaguely familiar: two men in a gay relationship, hiding it from a conservative family, end up tangled in a faux marriage to satisfy cultural and legal pressures. But in Ahn’s version, the updated circumstances require more hoops to jump through—and it shows. Here, Min (played by Han Gi-chan) is the heir to a wealthy Korean business family who wants to remain in the United States rather than return home to fulfill family obligations. His partner, Chris (Bowen Yang), hesitates when Min proposes—not just romantically, but literally—fearing he’s being used for immigration purposes.

Meanwhile, their close friends, Lee (Lily Gladstone) and Angela (Kelly Marie Tran), are a couple struggling to afford another round of IVF treatments. This sets up the film’s convoluted core: Min marries Angela in exchange for funding their fertility treatment. It's a house of cards that never quite finds a stable foundation.

What was once a simple but meaningful comedy of manners becomes a narrative labyrinth that seems unsure of its own tone. This remake of The Wedding Banquet wants to be many things: a rom-com, a family drama, a commentary on queer identity, and a satire on immigration politics. But in trying to do so much, it ends up doing too little.

Andrew Ahn, whose previous work (Fire Island) also featured Bowen Yang, appears more concerned with updating aesthetics than enriching character depth. The film is populated with tepid dialogue and situational setups that feel forced. Even the central emotional conflict—Chris’s reluctance to marry Min—feels undercooked, partly due to Yang’s limited range.

A cast adrift in a sea of tonal confusion

Bowen Yang is a comedic talent on Saturday Night Live, but in dramatic territory, his performance often comes across as detached. His chemistry with Han Gi-chan is lukewarm at best, and the emotional stakes of their relationship never fully land. Gi-chan, as Min, has moments of sincerity, but his character is so constrained by the plot’s logistical demands that it’s hard to feel his heartbreak.

Kelly Marie Tran and Lily Gladstone, who form the second couple at the heart of the story, deliver stronger performances. Tran captures Angela’s quiet desperation and fierce loyalty, while Gladstone brings emotional honesty to Lee’s role. However, even they are often relegated to soap opera-level arguments and sudden bursts of melodrama.

Youn Yuh-jung shines as the film’s saving grace

One of the few bright spots in the film comes when Youn Yuh-jung enters as Min’s grandmother, Ja-young. A veteran actress who won an Oscar for Minari, Youn brings a lived-in realism to the screen that everyone else struggles to match. Her scenes are calm, thoughtful, and even mischievous, adding much-needed texture to the otherwise overcooked narrative.

Her pairing with Joan Chen, who plays Angela’s mother May, is one of the film’s most inspired choices. Chen’s character is a spirited, gay-friendly parent who’s baffled by her daughter’s heterosexual engagement. Their interactions offer a refreshing inversion of the “disapproving parent” trope and provide a glimpse of the sharper film this could have been.

Where humor and heart go missing

Despite being billed as a romantic comedy, Ahn’s The Wedding Banquet contains few genuine laughs. Much of the humor feels forced, leaning on awkward pauses and sitcom setups that fail to spark. The tearful confrontations feel equally contrived, rarely earned by the buildup.

There’s an overreliance on the “storm out and yell ‘Wait!’” formula for dramatic scenes, which becomes repetitive. Real emotional growth is mostly absent, replaced by moments that check boxes rather than develop characters. By the end, the viewer may feel more exhausted than moved.

Another reboot that didn’t need to happen

Hollywood’s obsession with remakes is nothing new, but this version of The Wedding Banquet joins a long list of recent reboots that ask more questions than they answer. Why remake a beloved film without adding something significantly new or insightful? If the goal was to reflect modern queer experiences more accurately, then the result should feel more rooted in today’s emotional truths—not just updated for the sake of inclusion or aesthetic.

Andrew Ahn had an opportunity to build upon a strong foundation laid by Ang Lee, whose original film balanced heart and humor with subtle cultural commentary. Instead, the reboot dilutes that essence, offering a disjointed story that never quite justifies its existence.

Final thoughts on the remake of The Wedding Banquet

This reboot of The Wedding Banquet may draw curiosity due to its connection to Ang Lee’s classic and the presence of recognizable names like Bowen Yang, Kelly Marie Tran, and Lily Gladstone. But it struggles to find its own identity. With flat direction, underwhelming performances, and a convoluted script, the film misses its chance to honor or reinvent the source material meaningfully.

In a landscape where reboots dominate the industry, Ahn’s The Wedding Banquet serves as a reminder that not all stories benefit from modernization. Some tales are best left untouched—or, if retold, done with greater care and a deeper sense of what made them special in the first place.