Summary

Collider’s Steve Weintraub talked to The Wedding Banquet’s director and cast during the 2025 Sundance Film Festival.

Filmmaker Andrew Ahn shared his love for the original 1993 film, inspired by his actors and his emotional editing process.

Cast members share their experiences connecting to the script and original film, and Bowen Yang teases Wicked: For Good.

The niche space of queer Asian-American cinema is not necessarily brimming with films, but it has borne one of the more influential and diverse films of the ’90s: The Wedding Banquet. This 1993 movie had its heyday, and many people felt its impact, including director and screenwriter Andrew Ahn. Subsequently, he decides to re-ignite the film’s initial success and bring it back into pop culture through this 2025 reboot, where the concepts are modernized, but love still exists at its core.
Instead of the original’s love triangle, The Wedding Banquet (2025) hosts a messy queer love square where each point is played by Bowen Yang (Chris), Han Gi-chan (Min), Lily Gladstone (Lee), and Kelly Marie Tran (Angela). Min needs a green card, but his boyfriend, Chris, is too much of a commitment-phobe. As such, he decides to marry his friend Angela. In return, he would fund her and her girlfriend’s, Lee’s, IVF treatments. However, things become awkward when Min’s mother throws a lavish wedding banquet for them. With Joan Chen and Youn Yuh-jung playing the formidable matriarchs, also joined by Bobo Le and Camille Atebe, this film finds its footing in found families and queer love while modernizing (and paying tribute to) the original.
The Wedding Banquet premiered at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival, where Steve Weintraub sat with Ahn, Yang, Gi-chan, Tran, Chen, Yuh-jung, and Le at Collider’s media studio at the Rendezvous Cinema Center. They talk about being inspired by the original film and how it impacted each of them, from watching it while growing up to working with Ang Lee. Ahn also speaks about adjusting the characters for the actors and his heart-on-his-sleeve approach to editing. If you want to hear about their experience reading the script and teasers for Wicked: For Good straight from the cast and crew, watch the video above, or you can read the transcript below.
‘The Wedding Banquet’ Is a Reboot of the 1993 Original

“It’s really special to me that my first gay film was The Wedding Banquet.”

COLLIDER: How excited are you for this afternoon? Because this is the culmination of all that work.
ANDREW AHN: I’m ready. It’s interesting, we were just reminiscing about how this project started, and it started here at Sundance with our producers talking. Anita Gou, one of our producers, had a first conversation with me here at the festival. It just feels really special to be premiering the movie here.
A lot of people are familiar with the Ang Lee film, but your story is different. For people who aren’t familiar with it, what is it about, and what was it about Ang’s film and this story that compelled you to say, “I want to make my version of this?”
AHN: I love the original film. It really holds a special place in my heart. I watched it when I was eight years old. My mother saw the VHS at a video rental store, and she was like, “This is that movie with Asian people that white people are watching. We should see what it’s about.” We rented it, not knowing that it was a queer film. We watched it at home with the family, and, as an eight-year-old, nascent gay boy, it just kind of blew my mind. It’s really special to me that my first gay film was The Wedding Banquet and that it was a gay Asian-American film. I really thank the film for who I am today, who I am as an artist.
For those reasons, I kind of didn’t want to do the re-imagining. I was scared about it. But then I thought, so much has changed for the queer community since 1993. Today, gay people can get married here in the States. So I thought about, now that we have the option of that choice, do we want to? Should we? And then just thinking about having children, like building your family, growing your family. As gay people, we have to be extremely intentional about it. Any sort of hesitation becomes a giant obstacle. For these reasons, I felt like we could make an update to The Wedding Banquet that really speaks to a modern audience.

Image by Photagonist

The film is about four friends, two couples, living together in Seattle. Lee and Angela are struggling to have a baby through expensive IVF treatments, and the other couple, Chris and Min, are wrestling with this question of marriage. In order for Min to stay in the country, him and Angela get married in exchange for Min paying for Angela’s and Lee’s IVF treatments. The scheme gets put to the test because Min’s grandmother comes from Korea to plan this elaborate, lavish Korean wedding ceremony. The film is about chosen family. It’s about growing your family. It’s about home.
One of the things that I found fascinating was you didn’t do any screen tests. How was it with casting? When were you confident this is all worked out, everything is good?
AHN: They’re just stars. Everybody is a star. There are conversations, of course. I think there’s always a bit of a vibe check and conversation about the characters and about the film. Through the script, people understood the kind of spirit of what we were making and understood the kind of feeling of generosity that these characters have with each other that would inform the process.
Chen Was Supposed To Be in the Original ‘The Wedding Banquet’

“It’s a no-brainer.”

For all the actors here, I’m sure all of you have read many scripts. What was it about this script and this story and this project that said, “I want to spend my time making it, I want to be involved?”
JOAN CHEN: James Schamus, who co-wrote it with Andrew Ahn, gave me the script and when I first read it, I just thought it was extremely well-written. It’s so heartwarming. It’s situationally funny, but sincere. You don’t have to be funny. The four characters in the film, the chosen family, is a very moving story. They fight and they love. I think, ultimately, one word: love.
My character is sort of an attention-seeking, clueless, bad mother. Ultimately, she learned a bit from that chosen family—why the daughter didn’t want her as family. But their chosen family taught me something in the end. It’s a no-brainer. Also, I did have some sort of connection with the first The Wedding Banquet because I met with Ang when he first started when I first arrived in the United States from China. We wanted to do this together, but it took him eight or nine years to raise the funds and by then it wasn’t me anymore. Also, I did have a green card marriage myself, so it was all close to me.

Image by Photagonist

Great answer.
HAN GI-CHAN: For me, the original film in 1993 was actually before my birth. I was born in 1998, so I couldn’t know The Wedding Banquet, the original film, before I met Andrew. I could just see the Min character, which I was auditioning for. I felt Min has a little similar thing in life to me. Min doesn’t have great support from their family and the character, maybe, was similar to me when I was young. Parents don’t want their kid to be an actor because the future’s not that bright usually, right? [Laughs] Anyway, that was a similarity, a part of [why] I wanted to play Min. Also, it was a really charming point for me to act in English. This was my first film acting in English. And for Sundance. So it was a fantastic ride.
‘The Wedding Banquet’s Characters Were Also Inspired By Their Actors

“I wanted to find inspiration from them.”

Image via Sundance Institute

BOBO LE: When I first read the script, I was like, “There’s four gay people in the same house? That’s crazy. I want to be part of that.” My character, Kendall, is Chris’s rambunctious party animal cousin who would absolutely die for him. I feel like it’s so sweet because we get to explore this relationship between them and their history and this soft, vulnerable side of Bowen’s character. I think Kendall really brings it out of him. That was such a beautiful moment that we had in one of our scenes, as well.
AHN: Boba was so good in the audition that we adjusted the character. Kendall used to just be Chris’s friend. Then we realized maybe there’s a stronger bond and more opportunity if Kendall is Bowen’s cousin. It was one of those things where, with all of the actors, I wanted to find inspiration from them and find deeper, more profound ways to tell this story and to personalize it. That was a really great discovery.
LE: It was really cool. When I came in for my callback and I met Andrew, at the very end of my audition, I pulled my phone out, and I freestyled for him, like freestyle dance. Just straight-up popping freestyle. He was like, “Where’d you learn how to do that?” I was like, “YouTube.” [Laughs].
AHN: We put it in the movie. It’s in the movie.
LE: It’s in the movie.
KELLY MARIE TRAN: You’re a star. When I first read the script, the thing that resonated with me the most was this idea of chosen family and creating a family that maybe might not look like what society has told you it needs to look like and accepting that and recognizing it’s enough, maybe even more than enough. It really just moved me in so many ways. To have been on set with all of these incredible people and feel like that came to life was just the greatest gift.
Youn Yuh-Jung Did Not Want to Do Another Indie Film

“You cannot beat your children, so I said, ‘Okay, I will do it.'”

Image by Jefferson Chacon

YOUN YUH-JUNG: My story is very negative. I didn’t even read the script because [Andrew] sent me the script just through his friend. I was about to say no. Of course, I said no because I don’t want to be in an independent movie again. I’m a 78-year-old lady. Last time, I said, “I’m not going to be struggling with all the young kids. They have a passion, and I lived too long. I don’t have passion.” Getting old is a job for me. So, I’m not going to read it because reading English is giving me a headache. I asked my son to read it, and then my son said, “I’m not good at reading scripts. I’m not an expert.” So, why don’t I ask my first son? He’s good at it. You met him, [Bowen].
BOWEN YANG: Yes, your son-in-law.
YUH-JUNG: Yes, my son-in-law. He said, “No, this script is really good. It meant a lot to me. And Bowen Yang is a good actor.” He mentioned you and Lily Gladstone and everybody. “So, you should do it.” You cannot beat your children, so I said, “Okay, I will do it.” So I told Andrew, “I would do it.” This is my story.
YANG: Oh my god. That’s the best.

Image by Photagonist

Bowen, good luck.
YANG: Thank you, I can’t beat that. I read the script, and it just solved so many things that I had been thinking about in terms of comedy scripts and what gets made and what doesn’t get made. It’s an incredible movie that has a million different fulcrums. Andrew and James balanced so many relationships. You really do see, like on a small unit level between two characters, the array of relationships in the movie, the way that it braids all of those together was pretty incredible. And it manages to be funny, and it manages to be extremely poignant about what it’s saying. I couldn’t believe that, there were just there was just nothing lacking in it. I feel like I had to say yes.
When you have this many relationships and this many characters, making each one pop in the under two-hour screen time is really tricky, but it sounds like you did.
Ahn Talks About ‘The Wedding Banquet’s Post-Production Process

“I think it’s actually more difficult and braver to just express your emotions.”

Image via Sundance

I definitely also want to touch on the importance of films like this because I do feel like the United States, as much as I fully approve of gay marriage and representation, feels like the country is just taking a step backwards. I just want to say thank you for making a film like this, which reminds people. It’s just really important.
AHN: Thank you.
YUH-Jung: By the way, Andrew, you gave me the lesson. Never say never. My promise was after Minari, “I’m not going to do any independent thing in my life.” Never say never. So I’ll do it one more time. [Laughs]
AHN: Thank you.
Andrew, I’m fascinated by the editing process. I know you only shot this in 25 days. What was it like in the editing room? How did the film change in ways you didn’t expect?
AHN: Our editor, Geraud Brisson, is a collaborator that I’ve worked with in the past, and he’s so much of a feeler. The editing process really is trial and error. You put something together, you watch it, and you just have to be so honest about your feelings, and that’s really difficult. Through this process of taking risks and then scaling back and then pushing more, the notes process with people who’ve never read the script, and then, of course, our producers and our distributor.
For me, it’s just about trying to get as much perspective on the film as possible, especially as a director when you’re so close to it. And then knowing when to lean into the emotion. I think this film wears its heart on its sleeve in a way that I’m very proud of because I think that there are a lot of cynical films out there. There’s a lot of trying to be too cool for school. I think it’s actually more difficult and braver to just express your emotions. That is a part of the story of the film. I felt like we had to do that in the process of making it. I could not have asked for a better editor. Geraud was my rock through the process. He saw me cry way too many times.

Related

‘The Wedding Banquet’ Review: Lily Gladstone and Bowen Yang Put a Refreshing Twist on Old-School Rom-Coms | Sundance 2025

The comedy remake centers around a fake marriage and also stars Han Gi-chan and Kelly Marie Tran.

Bowen Yang Is a Part of ‘Wicked: For Good’

“Oh, this is something that has some echo of a Wizard of Oz impact.”

I’m basically out of time, but Bowen, I do want to ask you an individual question. I want to know what it means to you to be in one of the Best Picture nominees of 2024, and when did you realize it was going to be this monster hit? And the last part, are you in Wicked Part 2 [For Good]?
YANG: I’ll answer in reverse order. I am in Wicked Part 2 and in a fun capacity. I think my character gets his just desserts. And when did we realize? Gosh, it’s so cloying to say this, but in the making of this, it just had the feeling of a student film. But then, I think when I brought a Glinda Lego set to my niece. I think the fact that there’s a younger generation that’s really absorbing the story was kind of incredible to me. It was like, “Oh, this is something that has some echo of a Wizard of Oz impact,” where it’s just intergenerationally meaningful.

Image by Photagonist

What does it mean to you to be part of a Best Picture nominee?
YANG: Well, I’m no Joan Chen—she’s in a Best Picture winner—but what an honor. I mean, it’s incredible.
Special thanks to our 2025 partners at Sundance including presenting partner Rendezvous Capital and supporting partners Sommsation, The Wine Company, Hendrick’s Gin, neaū water, and Roxstar Entertainment.

The Wedding Banquet

Release Date

April 18, 2025

Runtime

102 Minutes

Director

Andrew Ahn

Writers

Andrew Ahn, James Schamus

Producers

James Schamus, Julie Goldstein, Daniel Bekerman, Shivani Rawat, Joe Pirro, Kent Sanderson, Anita Gou, Andrew Karpen