INTERVIEW Han Gi-chan finds his voice in ‘Wedding Banquet’
Actor Han Gi-chan / Courtesy of Fantagio
Han Gi-chan has never taken the easy route. Fans first spotted him in 2019 on “Produce X 101,” hustling alongside dozens of other trainees, fighting for camera time and lines to sing. Looking back now, he admits those years of idol training unexpectedly prepared him for an acting career that would carry him from Korean web dramas to Vancouver film sets, working opposite screen legends like Youn Yuh-jung.
Han is disarmingly honest about his start.
“I wasn’t even trying to be a musician,” he told The Korea Times. “I was signed mostly as an acting trainee, but in Korea you also do singing and dancing. That’s the basics. So I thought, OK, I’ll fake it.”
The experience also taught him how to perform under pressure. On “Produce X 101,” he played to 50 cameras; on a drama set, there might be two or three.
“I was never nervous,” he said. “I already knew how to find the lens.”
Last year came his first major TV role in KBS’ “Dare to Love Me.” Then, unexpectedly, came an audition for Andrew Ahn’s “The Wedding Banquet.”
Landing the role
When Han first saw the script for “The Wedding Banquet,” he was baffled.
“Two people in love, but he’s marrying someone else? It didn’t make sense,” he recalled.
Born in 1998, he had never seen the original 1993 film by Ang Lee, a landmark piece of cinema that featured a gay Asian American love story. Where the original leaned into farcical comedy, Ahn’s reimagining opts for slower, more earnest drama. This time the story follows two couples, a gay male couple portrayed by Han and Bowen Yang, and a lesbian couple played by Kelly Marie Tran and Lily Gladstone, with veteran actors Joan Chen and Youn Yuh-jung rounding out the cast.
The audition process was surprisingly swift. Ahn had spotted Han in the web drama “Ocean Likes Me” and reached out through his agency.
“He didn’t know if my English was good,” Han said. “That was the only question. But he thought I looked right for the role.”
Han performed only a couple of scenes over Zoom, but within a few days, Ahn told him that he got it. “That never happens,” Han said, still incredulous.
A few months later, Han found himself in Vancouver, working on a Hollywood production, speaking lines in both Korean and English. Han was too excited to feel any culture shock, but he realized that language shaped his performance.
“Korean keeps you humble,” he said. “You bow, you speak formally. But English gives me freedom. I wasn’t trying to be a comic, but in English I moved more, I felt free.”
Han Gi-chan, left, in a scene from the film "Wedding Banquet" / Courtesy of Luka Cyprian
Working with legends
Han’s face lights up when talking about acting alongside Youn, a beloved actor who became the first Korean to win an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress in 2021.
Their first meeting in Vancouver wasn’t a warm introduction, but a test.
“She opened the door and said, ‘Sit down. Read.’ No small talk. We read the last scene together, the climax of the movie. I cried, twice.” Afterwards, Youn told him bluntly: “Your Korean pronunciation needs work. Fix it.”
Rather than feeling intimidated, Han took it as motivation.
“She wasn’t testing my lines, she was testing me,” he said. “And later, at Sundance [Film Festival], she sat next to me during the screening. When my name came on the credits, she clapped for me. That was the biggest compliment.”
Director Ahn, meanwhile, worked like a collage artist.
“He wanted ingredients,” Han said. “He’d say, try it seriously, now try it lovely, now say it to yourself. [It was as if] he collected puzzle pieces and built the film from them.” Han embraced the method, giving Ahn different “ingredients” with every take.
Chosen family, onscreen and off
One of the themes of Ahn’s “Wedding Banquet” is chosen family, and Han noted that it mirrored the off-screen chemistry.
“We spent every weekend together,” he said. “Hiking in Stanley Park, watching Lily’s ‘Fancy Dance.’ Kelly loves hiking so much, she dragged us for five hours. Even after filming, she still messages me.”
It was a shock compared to the Korean sets he knew, where hierarchy and reserve still dominate.
“In Korea, people respect your individual time, but they don’t gather like family. On this set, we respected each other and became a family. I’d never experienced that.”
That closeness shows in the film’s quiet moments. Han points to a near-silent garden scene between Tran and Gladstone as his favorite, even though he wasn’t in it.
“I only saw it at Sundance,” he said. “No dialogue, just emotion. That touched me so much.”
A Korean poster for "The Wedding Banquet" / Courtesy of Fantagio
Personal stakes
“The Wedding Banquet” may be director Ahn’s most personal work yet. Han remembers the first time the director cried on set.
“It was during the first Korean wedding scene, when we walked down the stairs. He cried a lot. It was what he really wanted to do for his own wedding,” Han said.
Youn also brought her own history to the film. In interviews, she revealed she accepted the role of a grandmother who embraces her gay grandson because of her own family experience of her son coming out to her.
That lived truth, woven into the performances of all the characters in the film, deepens its already resonant theme — that family, chosen or inherited, is always complicated and sometimes redemptive.
At 27, Han is thinking beyond acting. He’s been working on his own script, inspired by his love of animation and sci-fi.
“I think stories should be simple, direct, with a strong message. Now, dramas and movies are too full of dopamine. I want to write something intuitive, with impact.”
He knows Korean audiences are still wary of sci-fi, often finding it awkward when paired with melodrama. But he believes the global market makes space for experimentation.
“Korea is still conservative, but with YouTube and streaming, people are exposed to more,” he said. “‘The Wedding Banquet’ arriving now feels like part of that trend.”
As for how audiences will receive Ahn’s reimagining, Han hopes viewers see it less as a remake than a respectful homage.
“Andrew always says it’s not a remake, it’s a reimagining. He began with the question: What if the girl was gay? What if she had a girlfriend? That imagination started this film,” he said.
“For Korean audiences, I hope they see we’re honoring the original while telling a story about building your own family, something universal.”
Before “The Wedding Banquet” reaches local theaters on Sept. 24, it is being screened at the Busan International Film Festival on Sept. 18, 20 and 22.
Cynthia SohYoung Yoo is an assistant professor at Kyung Hee University. With a background in journalism and law, her work bridges academic research and public storytelling.