Kelly Marie Tran & Youn Yuh-Jung Glow in Lee’s The Wedding Banquet

As human beings, we often struggle to simply be ourselves. Yet, society continuously dictates what we should and shouldn’t be, how we should and shouldn’t look and who we should and shouldn’t love.

Produced by Academy award winner, Ang Lee and directed by Andrew Ahn, The Wedding Banquet is the emotionally cinematic experience of a lifetime.  Unlike the 1993 film, the reimagined version doubles the stakes and plot mechanics with two couples—all four characters co-leads in a delicately balanced ensemble comedy. Angela (Kelly Marie Tran) and her partner Lee (Lily Gladstone) have been unlucky with their IVF treatments, but can’t afford to pay for another round. Meanwhile their friend Min (Han Gi-Can) the closeted heir of a multinational corporate empire has plenty of family money. Knowing his student visa is soon-to-expire, he proposes to commitment-phobic boyfriend Chris (Bowen Yang). Desperate, Min makes the offer to Angela instead in exchange for funding Lee’s IVF. Their plans to quietly elope are upended when Min’s skeptical grandmother (Youn Yuh-Jung ) flies in from Korea unannounced, insisting on an all-out wedding extravaganza.

For Ahn, the plot device presented an opportunity to explore more granular, contemporary issues of queer and cultural identity. “I thought, what are the
questions that I’m wrestling with as a queer person today?” Ahn adds, “I remember when my brother got married, I wondered if I would ever have that experience with my partner. I saw how the wedding brought him closer to his wife, to my parents, to his Korean culture. As a gay man, I wasn’t sure I could have this, so making this film was my way of throwing myself a Korean wedding.” “A lot has changed for the queer community since 1993, perhaps most significantly the legalization of gay marriage,” Ahn says. “But now that we can get married, the
question becomes… should we? Our film explores this question and the even thornier follow up. Should we… have kids?”

The Wedding Banquet is gorgeously written, acted and directed with hilarious heart reminding audiences that being part of a family means learning to both accept and forgive while making your life exactly the way you want it to look like.  Life can be angst ridden or an experience of a lifetime and this film is the cinematic experience of a lifetime.

Tran is having an exceptional year.  Along with the release of  her Hulu hit “Control Freak,” she is finally able to stretch and exude the range that she wasn’t allowed to display in the Star Wars franchise. Teamed with Academy award nominee Lily Gladstone, the duo will break your heart and simultaneously make it soar. Even Bowen Yang (known for his comedy chops on Saturday Night Live)  is allowed to stretch  in a way we haven’t yet seen, but wholeheartedly embrace. However, it is Academy Award winner Youn Yun-Jung and the legendary Joan Chen who steal the show.  Both stars bring the sweet and sour sides of motherhood to the screen with an empathetic energy every child and parent can relate to proving that love, acceptance, and forgiveness comes in all shades sizes, ages, and genders.