Director Andrew Ahn on reimagining Ang Lee’s queer classic ‘The Wedding Banquet’
Filmmaker Andrew Ahn still reels from the standing ovation he got at this year’s Sundance Film Festival for The Wedding Banquet, his nothing-novel yet slick, incredibly heartfelt remake of Ang Lee’s Oscar-nominated 1993 classic.
“That’s the first time that’s happened in my career, and I was very overwhelmed,” he says, when he hops on a Zoom call with me. “And my boyfriend saw it for the first time at Sundance at that premiere screening. I was not prepared in many ways.”
“But that maybe feels appropriate for this movie,” Ahn continues, “where sometimes we’re not prepared for what’s going to happen. And there’s drama and tears, [and] silliness. It’s messy, right, but if you trust in your love for each other, you know you’ll find your way through that process.”
The movie, in Ahn’s retelling alongside screenwriter James Schamus who also shares a writing credit on the original title, is a comedy of errors centered on a lesbian couple (Lily Gladstone and Kelly Marie Tran) who forges a green card marriage with their gay friends (Bowen Yang, who starred in Ahn’s erotic rom-com Fire Island, and Han Gi-chan) to fund their IVF treatments.
The remake, which opens in wide release on April 18, also boasts incredible supporting performances from Academy Award Winner Youn Yuh-jung and Joan Chen, fresh off playing another maternal figure in Sean Wang’s Dìdi, also a hit at last year’s Sundance.
The 39-year-old director got his start at Sundance, where in 2016 he premiered his debut feature Spa Night, an intimate drama that tracks the sexual awakening of a Korean-American teen working at a male-only spa in the zippy Koreatown neighborhood in Los Angeles. Lead actor Joe Seo then won the festival’s U.S. Dramatic Special Jury Award for Breakthrough Performance, and the film went on to cop the John Cassavetes Award at the 32nd Independent Spirit Awards.
It’s no surprise that Ahn reckons his return to the winter festival as a full circle moment, especially with a remake of a film that’s so formative to him. “Yeah, it was great to go back to Sundance,” he tells me. “If I didn’t have Sundance, I don’t think I’d have a career, and I’m so thankful for the festival and the programmers, especially Kim Yutani for championing queer artists of color and their stories.”
If the illicit cruising spot turned out to be the gay awakening of David Cho in Spa Night, it was The Wedding Banquet that did it for Ahn. Though accidentally, it was the first gay movie he saw at age eight, after his mom chanced upon the VHS for the movie at a video rental store. “My mom rented it, not knowing that it was a gay film. And so, you know, it set the bar very high for other gay movie-watching in the future,” Ahn says with a smile.
The Korean-American director then waxes sentimental over the queer classic. “I love that Ang’s film balances family and culture and sexuality, and understands that these aren’t separate elements of who we are; they’re intertwined. And I may not have consciously understood this, but I think that that really has inspired me in my work. I think every film I’ve made has some element of the philosophy of The Wedding Banquet.”
Considering the film’s personal impact on him, Ahn admits that, at first, he was on the fence about the adaptation. “But like any great artwork that we love, it was so inspiring and it resonated with me so much, especially watching it again as an adult,” he says. “It triggered these thoughts about wanting to get married and having children, and I think there was something about that phase of my life when I started writing with James Schamus, where those conversations were so top of mind that I became very excited to make this movie.”
Ahn first worked with Schamus on his second feature Driveways, where the latter served as his producer. But apart from the writer-producer, Ahn also retained some of his Driveways crew for this remake, including cinematographer Ki Jin Kim, costume designer Matthew Simonelli, and production designer Charlotte Royer.
Though the movie is set in Seattle, it was shot in Vancouver, Canada around summer last year. Ahn, however, has been working on the screenplay since January 2019. Reflecting on the six-year writing process, he says that talking to Schamus about what feels foundational in the story in relation to recalibrating it for today’s audiences has become really pivotal.
“What if the bride from the original film was also queer?” he wonders. “And so I think there was a lot [of] that [where] we kind of built the groundwork, and then we took our cues from that. And I think in the writing process, sometimes it felt like, ‘Oh, maybe we strayed too far,’ and then sometimes, you know, ‘maybe we could push it further.’ And so it was a constant revision process.”
As it turns out, Ahn’s take on such a beloved queer romantic comedy, on the one hand, borders on sitcom-level silliness with its brisk, often ludicrous plot progression, but on the other, it retains the emotional acuity that the director’s previous titles have come to possess. Above anything, it thrives in its tender, grounded portrayal of queer kinship and notions of home.
The Wedding Banquet also becomes more effective because it makes enough room for each member of its pedigreed cast, gathered by casting director Jenny Jue, who had also cast Bong Joon-ho’s Okja and Snowpiercer. “They were the best cast I could have asked for,” Ahn says of his ensemble.
“Everybody brought something different and personal. I love that this family is so dynamic and spiky, like they’re not a family where everybody’s the same, because that’s not a thing. Families [have] different personalities, different energies, different interests, different priorities. And so I really embrace that diversity.”
Throughout his career, Ahn has steadily worked with fellow queer and Asian artists, and he relishes every moment he gets witnessing their talents flourish on screen. “We had so much fun on set just because this cast really got along with each other. And we had a really wonderful opportunity to work with everybody,” he says.
Among those meaningful encounters on set was the movie’s Korean wedding sequence, which was even filmed on Youn Yuh-jung’s birthday (the crew surprised her with a cake at lunch).
“I was very emotional,” shares the director, who also has Amazon’s crime thriller A Sprinkle of History in the pipeline. “My parents were there on set, and it kind of felt like my own Korean wedding that I was throwing. And so it was a special moment in the movie. And it was a special moment in my life.”
At Sundance, he also spoke with Filmmaker Magazine about the experience. “I’ve spent much of my adulthood coming to terms with how my queer identity would preclude me from participating in these types of Korean rituals, rituals celebrating family, rituals that bring you closer to family,” he was quoted as saying.
But beyond wrestling with his queerness and Korean roots, Ahn sees The Wedding Banquet as a response to the “conservative backlash to the progress that’s been made [by and for the LGBTQ+ community] over the past few decades.”
“And it’s scary to see that it’s worldwide, it’s not just an American phenomenon, and I wish we were in better times,” he says. “I wish we were trending in a different direction. Culturally, politically. My hope is that people watch this film and that it gives LGBTQ+ people a sense of strength, a sense of optimism that at least we have each other.”
Ahn also hopes that the movie, however granular, can be a space for queer people to be vulnerable and heal with. “And then take that strength, go out there, and try to make the world a better place for the next generation, whether that’s through protest, or voting, or participating in mutual aid, you know, something where we can care for our community.”
He says further, “That’s something that queer people do so beautifully with each other. And I think we can continue to expand that to care for a larger community, for people that really need it. I think art is one aspect of that. And then I think we have to act on that inspiration.” – Rappler.com