Best known as a castmember on Saturday Night Live, Bowen Yang’s film career has led him to supporting parts. With 2025’s The Wedding Banquet, Yang finally gets a lead role.

Min (Gi-Han Chan) finds himself frustrated with his boyfriend Chris’s (Yang) fear of commitment. This creates issues because Min’s green card will soon expire, so he needs a way to stay in the US.

As a “solution”, Min agrees to help with fertility treatments for his lesbian friend Lee (Lily Gladstone) if her partner Angela (Kelly Marie Tran) will marry him to accommodate his citizenship. Already a house of cards, this situation becomes even more complicated when Min’s traditional wealthy grandmother Ja-Young (Youn Yuh-jung) decides to throw them a traditional Korean wedding.

Spoiler alert: though that last concept acts as the main plot point of Banquet, it ultimately feels less consequential. While the movie’s ads sell it as a wacky farce, that side doesn’t materialize as anticipated.

Based on promos, one would expect Banquet to offer little more than a comedy of errors as the characters attempt to fool Ja-Young. Instead, this doesn’t become a significant aspect of the narrative.

Banquet largely strives a real world look at gay life. It fails in that regard, as it instead winds up as a mix of high concept comedy and character drama.

Though again, the “high concept” doesn’t revolve around the “fooling Granny” shenanigans I expected. Though we get a little of that, most of the antics involved relate to other elements.

These feel wholly contrived. For a film that wants to depict gay characters as “regular folks”, it does little to develop them beyond basic archetypes.

And annoying ones at that. None seem likable, especially not the whiny and clingy Min.

In theory I should appreciate that Banquet tries to deliver more than the expected broad comedy. However, the roles seem so dull and forgettable that I began to long for some cheap slapstick.

In the end, the monotony of the lead roles makes Banquet a sluggish ride. None of the parts of story beats even develop into anything interesting and that means we wind up with a forgettable experience.

The Wedding Banquet appears in an aspect ratio of 1.66:1 on this Blu-ray Disc. The movie came with an appealing presentation.

Definition worked fine. Only a little softness ever manifested in some darker interiors, so the image largely felt precise and accurate.

Neither moiré effects nor jagged edges manifested, and I saw no edge haloes. Print flaws remained absent.

The movie’s palette opted for a trite lean toward amber/orange and teal. Though tedious, the hues came across as intended.

Blacks felt deep and dense, while low-light shots appeared smooth and clear. This wound up as a quality image.

Don’t expect a lot from the film’s restrained DTS-HD MA 5.1 soundtrack, as it went with a light sense of atmosphere and not much else. Music showed good presence and scenes in clubs or other gatherings added some kick, but the soundfield didn’t bring much zing.

Audio quality worked fine, with speech that appeared natural and concise. Effects didn’t get much to do, but they sounded accurate and without distortion.

Music felt warm and full. Nothing here impressed, but the track suited the character-based tale.

The disc opens with an ad for The Friend. No trailer for Banquet or any other extras appear here.

Though sold as a high concept comedy about lies and charades, The Wedding Banquet instead mixes humor with more introspective drama. Unfortunately, it does so in a manner that makes the movie seem both overwritten and underwritten at the same time. The Blu-ray comes with appealing picture and audio but it lacks bonus features. While I respect the flick’s goals, the end product flops.