Rom-Coms
Everything We Know So Far About ‘The Wedding Banquet’ Remake With Bowen Yang
Babe, wake up. The new Wedding Banquet trailer just dropped. From the director of the 2022 Pride and Prejudice adaptation Fire Island, Andrew Ahn, The Wedding Banquet has now premiered at this year’s Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah, and is coming to the theaters on April 18.
Starring Bowen Yang, Lily Gladstone, Kelly Marie Tran, and Han Gi-chan, the film is a remake of the Oscar-nominated 1993 original by the same name that followed a bisexual Taiwanese man who fakes a relationship with a Chinese woman to appease his parents while also getting her a green card. His boyfriend, who agrees to the plan, poses as his roommate when his parents come to visit. What follows, however, is a comedic and emotional fallout involving an unwanted wedding ceremony inviting every known relative to witness this false union. Timeless and touching, The Wedding Banquet has stood the test of time
Nominated for Best Picture in a Foreign Language, The Wedding Banquet was a cultural marker in queer, Asian, and immigrant representation in film. Now, audiences are anxious to see how this story plays out in a 2025 lens. Keep reading to learn everything we know about The Wedding Banquet.
Is The Wedding Banquet based on a book?
No. The original film was written, directed, and produced by Ang Lee, who also directed award-winning romance films Brokeback Mountain and Sense and Sensibility (1995). His films often explore repressed emotions and emotional charge, and throughout his career, he has won two Academy Awards for Best Director for the aforementioned queer cowboy love story as well as the survival drama Life of Pi.
When is The Wedding Banquet coming out?
The film first premiered for audiences at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival to critical acclaim. The film will hit theaters this spring on April 18, 2024. A streaming release date has not been announced.
Will there be any major changes from the original film?
There are quite a few! While the central conflict remains the same, one of the main differences of the film is Ahn’s sincere celebration of how far queer representation has come since its predecessor. In the remake, there are now two queer couples who live together who can all legally marry and become parents if they wish. While the pressures of societal norms remain, the quad’s banter and relationships with one another are in the spotlight (as opposed to Lee’s trio in the original).
The new plot is as follows: the lesbian couple Angela (Tran) and Lee (Gladstone) are unsuccessful in their IVF venture. Meanwhile, their housemates Chris (Yang) and Min (Han) are struggling to find a way to get Min a green card through marriage without his family in Korea discovering he’s gay out of fear they’ll take away his fortune. Naturally, a fake marriage ensues.
The film is being celebrated for its larger focus on women, comedic performances, and an all-star cast getting to show off new sides of their performance range, including Han who’s debuting his first role in an American feature.
Who’s directing the remake?
Andrew Ahn is directing this film. Ahn most recently directed the romantic comedy Fire Island, written by Joel Kim Booster, who also starred in the film alongside Conrad Ricamora and Yang, who Ahn has commented on as a favorite actor of his to work with. In an interview with ScreenRant, Ahn said, “I think there’s something about his ability to balance heart and humor, and I don’t think he always gets to show off that range…He’s my muse.”
The Wedding Banquet, April 18, In Theaters
