Author: KickingK
Date: Saturday May 31st, 2025
Outdated plot, contemporary and beautiful people
The Wedding Banquet
I've not seen the 1993 film that this is a remake of. It's somehow passed me by despite being a big fan of Ang Lee. So I don't know how much has changed from the original. But good lord this film feels weird at times.
The plot is characterised by the kind of high-concept, situation lead set-up common to rom-coms of the eighties and nineties. But the direction takes a little bit of a back seat, allowing the actors the time and space to make their characters entirely believable, despite the patently absurd (and staggeringly predictable) situations the plot places them in.
And it works. That time and space is where the comedy lives. There are plenty of proper belly laughs that come from nothing more than a sideways glance or muted 'harrumph'. Youn Yuh-jung's grandmother managed to steal almost every scene without even moving her face. Understated, character-led comedy is exactly my kind of thing and this film has it in spades.
If I have a criticism of the film, it's the cinematography. It's very basic and lacks flair. It's arguably not a problem for a rom-com, except... art plays a big part in this film. Both Bowen Yang and Han Gi-Chan play artists whose work is genuinely beautiful and yet the film seems almost completely un-interested in exploring that. Which is an issue when that art plays a part of one characters plot-changing and emotional decision. The moment works, the characters make it work, but it would have been so much more powerful if you saw in the art what that character saw. But the film doesn't give you that opportunity.
But I loved this film. It's relentlessly funny. And I believed in the characters even if I didn't believe in the plot. Beautiful.
