The beloved 1993 queer romantic comedy The Wedding Banquet is getting a remake, and somehow it’s even gayer than before.
Directed by Andrew Ahn (Fire Island), The Wedding Banquet (2025) spins the original on its head. The ’90s Ang Lee film—which you should definitely watch if you haven’t—tells the story of a gay Taiwanese man who enters a straight marriage to satisfy his strict family. While the film is a classic, this storyline wouldn’t have the same draw it did 30 years ago. It lacks variety in its queer representation and provides no queer support for the main closeted character, whose gay interactions seem to be limited to his boyfriend.
But, have no fear. Ahn is here.
In this modern retelling, we get not one, but two queer couples. Not to mention a star-studded cast, including Lily Gladstone (Killers of the Flower Moon), Kelly Marie Tran (Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker), Bowen Yang (SNL, Wicked), Youn Yuh-jung (Minari), Joan Chen (The Last Emperor), and Han Gi-chan (Where You Eyes Linger).
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Ahn’s film follows Lee (Gladstone) and her girlfriend Angela (Tran) who live with their friends, Min (Han) and his boyfriend Chris (Yang), in a queer haven of a household in Seattle. However, the drama begins to heat up as Lee and Angela struggle to afford another round of fertility treatment and Han’s student visa is set to expire.
On top of this, Min’s family has no idea he’s gay, and he doesn’t plan on telling them any time soon. In a lavender marriage-esque workaround, Min gets down on one knee and pops the question to Angela. In exchange, he offers to pay for the lesbian couple’s IVF treatment. Seems like a pretty good deal.
One thing the friend group didn’t account for is Min’s grandmother (Yuh-jung) flying in from Korea to meet her future daughter-in-law. They immediately jump into action to remove all queer-coded items from view.
“Everything in this house is GAY!” Angela screams frantically in a hilarious call-back to the original film.
Much to the chagrin of Min and Angela, the grandmother insists on a wedding ceremony, and the friend group finds themselves in a little too deep.
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For Ahn and the cast, production was an emotional experience.
“Weddings bring people together. As a gay person, I wondered if I’d ever have that,” he told Variety. “In making this movie, I selfishly threw my own Korean wedding. The first day we shot, I lost it. I started weeping.”
“I found myself tearing up,” Gladstone added. “It’s a moving thing to be part of this Korean wedding. There’s symbolism in everything.”
During the making of The Wedding Banquet, Tran publicly opened up about her own queer identity for the first time.
“I’m a queer person,” she told Vanity Fair. “The thing that really excited me about it was I got to play a person that I felt like I knew. I don’t feel like I’m acting at all in this movie
Safe to say, we’ll need to pull out the tissues for this one. The Wedding Banquet will premiere at Sundance on February 1 and will be released in theaters on April 18.
Watch the full trailer below: