Ghost Month has started in Taiwan, so it’s a good time to consider the Taiwanese film Marry My Dead Body.
The film’s premise is audacious: a macho, homophobic police officer, Wu Ming-han accidentally picks up a ceremonial red envelope and is forced into a supernatural “ghost marriage” with a deceased gay man, Mao Pang-yu.
That’s a lot. But’s it’s also just the beginning. In it’s two hour ten minute run-time you get a supernatural comedy, and an action movie. A bro-mance that is also a police procedural, a poignant family drama, and a movie filled with sharp social commentary.
The film is inextricably linked to its social context, produced in the wake of Taiwan becoming the first Asian country to legalize same-sex marriage in 2019.
Marry My Dead Body successfully combines social commentary on LGBTQ+ rights, generational shifts, and evolving traditions within a highly accessible, multi-genre blockbuster format. It shattered box office records in Taiwan, and was also the island nation’s official submission for the Best International Feature Film at the Academy Awards.
The Chinese tradition of ghost marriage with origins stretching back millennia, is designed to ensure that individuals who die unmarried are not left lonely in the afterlife. It is a ritual steeped in Taoist beliefs about the soul and Confuciian ideals about family. A Ghost Marriage is often initiated by the deceased’s family leaving a red envelope in a public place, with the person who picks it up becoming the intended spouse, bound by a supernatural obligation wed the ghost to to avoid misfortune.
Marry My Dead Body radically subverts this tradition. Historically, ghost marriage has often served as a patriarchal custom, reinforcing heteronormative and patrilineal structures. The film seizes this ritual and reappropriates it for a same-sex couple, transforming a tool of patriarchal continuity into a powerful symbol of modern, inclusive values.
The film, and it’s success at the box office suggests tradition and progressiveness are not mutually exclusive but can be blended to reflect contemporary social realities.
For Director Cheng, previously acclaimed for his work in darker genres like the horror film The Tag-Along and the mystery-thriller The Soul, this project represented a deliberate pivot to comedy to tackle a serious topic.
To realize this vision, the script underwent a meticulous three-year development period. Cheng, an expert in crime and plot structure, collaborated with dedicated comedy screenwriter Sharon Wu. They adopted a bifurcated creative process: Cheng focused on the “foreground story”—the action-packed police investigation and crime-thriller elements—while Wu was tasked with crafting the witty dialogue and emotional beats of the “background story,”
You can see how this structured collaboration balanced the film’s complex tonal shifts and ensured that the character-driven heart of the story remained its anchor amidst the genre-bending spectacle. This is a film that not only attempts a lots things, it’s a film that succeeds at them.
The acting is top notch Greg Hsu, often cast in more gentle roles like 18 X2 Beyond Youthful Days, fully commits to the persona of Wu Ming-han, a “macho,” foul-mouthed, and physically imposing cop. Austin Lin, a Golden Horse Award winner, embraced the challenge of his comedic role, imbuing the ghost Mao Mao with a cheeky, sassy, yet deeply endearing personality that provides much of the film’s charm
Gingle Wang, fellow officer Lin Tzu-ching, also gave a really impressive performance, and her character’s compelling arc provides a commentary on workplace misogyny, As if there wasn’t already enough going on.
The queen of C-pop, and outspoken advocate for marriage equality and LGBTQ+ rights, provide the theme song, and she received for first Golden Horse nomination for it.
As a society with deep roots in Chinese heritage that is also a progressive, Western-influenced democracy, Taiwan is in a constant state of synthesizing these dichotomies. The film’s narrative structure and thematic concerns mirror this national cultural dialogue, making it a profoundly resonant “state of the nation”–in the form of a really fun multi-genre film that anyone, anywhere, can enjoy. You can catch Marry My Dead Body on Netflix.
Optimistic Indie Roleplaying 