Boy meets boy. Girl meets girl. Boy and boy and girl and girl are all friends, but when boy needs a green card, boy proposes to … girl? That’s the plot of the upcoming adaptation of the Taiwanese classic The Wedding Banquet, directed by Fire Island’s Andrew Ahn, who collaborated on the screenplay with one of the original film’s writers, James Schamus. That’s a lot to keep — pardon — straight. No worries; all the information we have about the movie is laid out below.
Is there a trailer?
The trailer for The Wedding Banquet has a lot to explain. The “comedy of errors” plot is twisty and complicated, with six major characters to introduce, but it can’t seem too twisty or else the audience won’t get that this is a light comedy. Luckily, there’s some handy title cards, like “Lee wants a baby with Angela” and “Min wants to stay with Chris,” along with a few choice lines, such as “I don’t even want to be an American! The trains are so slow and I never know what to tip!” to help everybody out.
Who’s in the cast?
The movie revolves around Min (Han Gi-Chan), a gay Korean man who wants to live in America with his boyfriend, Chris (Bowen Yang), but needs a green card. His Korean grandmother (Youn Yuh-Jung, fresh off an Oscar for Minari) can’t know he’s gay, so he proposes to his friend Lee (Kelly Marie Tran), who wants to have a baby with her girlfriend, Angela (Lily Gladstone). Min’s grandmother visits and hilarity ensues. Also in the cast is Joan Chen (Dídi), who plays Lee’s overly supportive mother to confirmed scene-stealing effect.
Wait … it’s a remake?
The original version of The Wedding Banquet came out (haha) in 1993. Directed by Ang Lee, the film’s various comedic machinations surrounding marriage play a little differently in an era when gay marriage was not legal. The original movie is incredibly beloved — it received an Oscar nomination for Best Foreign Language Film, and in 2023 it was selected by the Library of Congress to join the National Film Registry.
What do reviews say?
The movie already premiered at the Sundance Film Festival this past winter. “Even though we can foretell just about everything that will happen in The Wedding Banquet — every plot twist, every screwball complication — we don’t much mind, because the comedy is so brisk and good-natured,” Vulture film critic Bilge Ebiri wrote of the movie. He also added that its sincere moments are “sturdy and heartfelt.”
When is the release date?
The Wedding Banquet will be released in theaters on April 18 — the perfect time to start pre-pre-gaming Pride Month.
