In 1993, before Ang Lee became the Oscar-winning director of films like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, and The Life of Pi, he made a delightful rom-com called The Wedding Banquet. The Wedding Banquet, co-written with Lee’s longtime collaborator James Schamus, tells the story of a Taiwanese man living in New York with his boyfriend who decides to marry his female artist tenant. She needs a green card; he needs to convince his marriage-hungry parents that he’s straight.
The film is a joy, but is, indeed, a little dated—and not just because it depicts Williamsburg in Brooklyn as an affordable place for poor artists to live. Queer life has changed in the decades since the film’s initial release, so in turn there’s a new version of The Wedding Banquet to reflect that evolution, which just premiered at the Sundance Film Festival. Made by Fire Island director Andrew Ahn, the 2025 Wedding Banquet is an absolutely lovely film that is bound to make you weep happily as it explores the contours of found family and people just trying to do their best for one another.
Read more at The Daily Beast.
