Interview: Andrew Ahn on ‘The Wedding Banquet’
While The Wedding Banquet may be director Andrew Ahn‘s fourth feature film, it’s only his second as a writer, following his 2016 debut Spa Night. “I love directing other people’s writing,” he says. “I think it really helps you as a director and I think it helps you as a writer, you know?”
Ahn’s experience directing his second feature, the 2020 film Driveways, proved to be particularly inspiring for him as a writer. That film, which tells the story of a woman who has come to the house of her late sister to pack it up and prepare it for sale, marked the final on-screen performance of actor Brian Dennehy, who passed away just a little over one month after the film’s release. At one point in the film, Dennehy’s character delivers a stirring monologue, remembering the chapters of his life: serving in the military, being a husband, and the complicated legacy of fatherhood. It was that particular scene that left an impression on Ahn, who cites it as a source of inspiration when it comes to his writing.
“I never would have written that final monologue from Brian Dennehy‘s character because I probably would have been too scared to write it,” he says. “But because Hannah Bos and Paul Thureen did that, I feel like if I ever had to write something like that in the future, I would have more confidence or inspiration.” That’s exactly what happened when he co-wrote The Wedding Banquet alongside James Schamus, who also co-wrote the original 1993 film alongside director Ang Lee and Neil Peng.
The Wedding Banquet was the first queer film Ahn had seen, having first come across the film at a video rental store with his parents when he was just 8 years old. Drawn in by the film’s Asian cast but unaware of its themes, Ahn’s mother decided to rent it for family viewing. The film left a mark on Ahn, who cites it as a formative viewing experience and also one of his favorite films. However, he had no intention of remaking it until he rewatched it as an adult many, many years later. “It brought up all these feelings and emotions and memories of conversations with my boyfriend about marriage and about children,” he says. “I was so inspired that I wanted to reimagine it and tell this story for a modern queer audience but still adopt the filmmaking philosophy and the humanity of the original film.”
The resulting film isn’t just a remake in the traditional sense, it’s something far more personal. Rooted in the themes of the original, but reframed through the lens of chosen family, queer parenthood, and the emotional logistics of building a life together, Ahn’s film speaks to what it means to love deliberately. To choose your people, to fight for them, and to imagine a future with them even when the world doesn’t make it easy.
“I love The Wedding Banquet and how Ang was able to balance culture, sexuality and family,” he says. But what felt urgent to him now was a different kind of question: how do queer people build family? Not only that, but also what even counts as one? “One element that I wanted to talk about, especially for a modern queer audience, was kind of chosen family and how you build queer family,” he says. “And how maybe the distinction between chosen family and fixed family is kind of permeable, right? Especially when you have questions about marriage and kids.”
Ahn wasn’t interested in making something hypothetical. The story he wanted to tell was one he knew firsthand. “It was just about showing a future that I am living right now as a queer man,” he says. “And so in many ways, the film is kind of wish fulfillment, you know? It’s showing a possibility of queer family that I hope is really inspiring for people.” Much like Lee’s 1993 original, Ahn’s remake wasn’t about inventing something new. It was about holding up a mirror to what already exists, and giving it the space to be seen.
That idea of family; messy, generous, made rather than inherited, shaped how he approached the casting process for the film too. Ahn worked closely with casting director Jenny Jue, who previously worked with acclaimed director Bong Joon-ho on his films Snowpiercer and Okja, to find his cast. “We wanted to create a family on screen and that sort of intimacy, it requires so much vulnerability,” he says. “And so that’s what we were looking for in our actors; a generosity.”
The cast came together slowly, one person at a time. “It’s such an all-stars avengers cast; Bowen Yang, Lily Gladstone, Kelly Marie Tran, Han Gi-chan,” says Ahn. “And then of course, you’ve got a legend of Chinese cinema, Joan Chen, and a legend of Korean cinema Youn Yuh-jung. I could not have asked for a better ensemble, and the fact that they gelled both on and off set is such a gift to me as a director.”
Ultimately for Ahn, the film is both a reflection and a reminder that stories like his have always existed, even if they haven’t always been given the space to take center stage. In many ways, the film itself is not unlike the central wedding banquet depicted in the film; it’s funny, tender, and at times chaotic, but it’s rooted in something steady: the belief that love, in all its forms, deserves to be seen, celebrated, and taken seriously. With The Wedding Banquet, Ahn is bringing a classic into the present for a new generation of moviegoers to experience, just like he did all those years ago.
THE WEDDING BANQUET is now playing in cinemas.