Director Andrew Ahn discussed his remake of Ang Lee’s Oscar-nominated 1993 indie, The Wedding Banquet, and his career at a “The Makers” event held on Wednesday as part of BFI Flare, the London LGBTQIA+ Film Festival.
Ahn was also asked about the backlash against queer rights in various parts of the world. “I wish it weren’t so fraught, and it makes me incredibly anxious. I can only hope that this film coming out is an opportunity for people to build community, watch this film together, gain some strength, and then be able to go out there and fight for what is portrayed on screen,” he said. “It just shows you it’s never a guarantee. It’s always this pendulum swing.”
Gay Directors, Gay Films? By Emanuel Levy (Columbia Univ Press).
Ahn highlighted that he approached the reimagining with much love and respect for Lee’s original, meaning he didn’t want to even consider a traditional remake: “You’re not going to make Ang Lee’s The Wedding Banquet better.”
“I kind of did not want to touch the original film, because I love it so much. I saw the original film when I was eight years old, when it was in video rental store, and my mother saw it and rented it, not knowing that it was a queer film,” he recalled to much audience laughter.
“We saw it as a family, and it kind of blew my mind. I probably didn’t even recognize at the time what it would mean to me,” Ahn noted. “But that was the first gay film I’d ever seen. And the fact that it was a gay Asian film, and a film that was told with so much humanity, I think really set me on this path to be the storyteller that I am today.”
Korean American filmmaker is “one of the most prominent chroniclers of queer Asian-American life in the last few years,” the BFI Flare event description stated. “His films include coming-of-age drama Spa Night, Driveways and rom-com Fire Island, a queer retelling of Pride and Prejudice. He has also directed episodes of Bridgerton, HBO Max’s Genra+ion, and FX documentary series Pride.”
