Andrew Ahn has skyrocketed to fame in the last fifteen years. Since the premiere of his short, “Andy” in 2011 San Diego Asian Film Festival, he has appeared again and again as an indie darling on the film festival circuit – including Sundance-premiering independent feature “Spa Night” (2016), Berlin-premiering drama, “Driveways” (2019), gay Hulu romcom “Fire Island” (2022), and now, “The Wedding Banquet.” Ahn’s latest feature is a remake of Ang Lee‘s 1993 romantic comedy, though with a Korean American twist. It’s similarly packed with a star power akin to Ahn’s own: the cast is packed with other major stars, like Bowen Yang, Kelly Marie Tran, Lily Gladstone, and Korean acting legend Youn Yuh-jung.
We had the opportunity to talk to Andrew Ahn over Zoom on the occasion of the film’s theatrical release this Friday. We talked about the nuances of trans-Pacific legacies with Ang Lee and Youn Yuh-jung, and the interstitial space of being Korean American and queer in the contemporary moment.
This interview has been edited and redacted for clarity.
By doing a remake of “The Wedding Banquet” (1993), you’re stepping into the shoes of one of the greatest trans-Pacific directors of all time, Ang Lee. How do you feel?
Andrew Ahn: I have definitely felt a lot of pressure and expectation. Though this is the first time in my career where I’m not necessarily the underdog. I have been able to deal with the pressure by just focusing on the work itself and crafting the best film I could make. [I wanted to] to show as much care and compassion to these characters that we’ve created to show their humanity portrayed on-screen.
What is your take on thinking about the trans-Pacific Asian connection?
There are different generations of Asian Americans portrayed at this wedding banquet. I wanted to show a diversity of experiences, and how we relate to our families. Angela doesn’t speak Mandarin to her mother; Min primarily speaks Korean to his grandmother. I was also interested in exploring why people come to the US or leave Asia. It’s so personal, and there are so many different reasons. There’s also that extra layer about queer rights in the motherland [South Korea[, and figuring out where’s safer. It’s a very complex, nuanced subject. I didn’t necessarily want to make a point of any one particular thing, but instead show a range of perspectives in the film.
It sounds like you were seeing yourself mostly through the eyes of Min.
It’s interesting, because Min and I are of different generations. I was born in the US, and Min came to the US as an international student. But there’s a lot in Min that I really understood, with this question of familial expectation. But I’m probably closer to Chris’s or Angela’s generation; I’m represented in each of the characters in the same way. But there is an undeniability in Min’s Koreanness that I’m connected to.
Let’s talk about that. It’s a weird time to be Korean American queer. There’s so much Korean visibility in US media consumption, but queer conversations are still new in Korean media.
Yeah, Korean culture has become more and more popular in the US.
It’s a trip!
A total trip. There are so many challenges for queer people, wherever there are, and that was a focus in my film to a certain extent. I didn’t show the homophobic grandfather on purpose, because I wanted to focus on how these queer people are just a disaster by themselves. It’s hard enough as it is for them to get their shit together.
I really wanted to humanize and show all that hesitation and misunderstanding. I’m so curious to see how this film will screen in Korea; I know the conversation is trickier there. (Although it’s not necessarily the best time to be queer in the US, either.) In the storyline between Min and his grandmother, the two characters still try to find a way to understand each other and this wedding through this very heteronormative tradition.
I’ve read previously that the paebaek (traditional Korean wedding) is something that your brother has done, but you haven’t.
I saw him get married and I was very jealous. Because of the tradition, it just felt like he got to be more Korean. And I wanted to be Korean too. I wanted to make this film as a way to throw myself my own Korean wedding, and queer it in some way. [For example,] there’s that whole sequence about the jujubes and the chestnuts, and no one knows if they represent [sons or daughters]. There’s enough space to make a joke and say, “Okay, they’ll have 15 nonbinary children,” to make the ceremony feel more inclusive.
And bringing on Youn Yuh-jung…
I reached out to her through my casting director, who worked as producer on “Minari.” They talked about the project and [Youn Yuh-jung] wanted to meet. It was very meaningful to me to hear that she has a gay son and that she hosted her gay son’s wedding, and that her son is a big fan of mine and had seen my previous film, “Fire Island.” So she passed the script off to him, he really enjoyed it, so she agreed to do the move. She said to me that she would do this film for him. So this was the real motivation to make this film the best I could.
“The Wedding Banquet” will play in North American theaters from April 18, 2025.
