The Wedding Banquet (2025)

We quite liked this updated remake of the 1993 Ang Lee movie, which I saw when it was new. In both versions, a gay couple (Chris and Min played here by Bowen Yang and Han-Gi Chan, respectively) plan a wedding of one of them to a woman to satisfy his traditional parents. In this version, Chris and Min's best friends are a lesbian couple played by Lily Gladstone as Lee and Kelly Marie Tran as Angela, who need money for IVF and Chris and Min agree to pay for it. Youn Yu-jung is Min's mother and Joan Chen is Angela's. In the original, the woman is a single straight woman needing a green card.

Director Andrew Ahn co-wrote the script with James Schamus, who co-wrote the original screenplay with Lee and another writer.

The soundtrack by Jay Wadley doesn't seem to be available online, but there's a long list of songs, some of which are in this playlist.

Interesting trivia: Chen was considered to play the woman needing a green card in the original.

Yang and Ahn were last blogged for Fire Island, Gladstone for her Oscar-winning performance in Killers of the Flower Moon, Tran for Raya and the Last Dragon, Youn for her Oscar-winning turn in Minari, Chen for Didi, Schamus for Indignation, and Wadley for We Grown Now (he also scored Fire Island). This is Chan's second feature after a few TV series.

 

Rotten Tomatoes' critics and audiences are united in their appreciation, averaging 86 and 84%. We rented it on June 24.