Review | Marry My Dead Body movie review: Greg Hsu and Austin Lin ham it up for LGBTQ supernatural action comedy by Taiwanese director Cheng Wei-hao
- The latest hit movie from Taiwanese director Cheng Wei-hao is a comical redemption story about a homophobic detective coerced into a marriage with a gay ghost
- Based on an award-winning screenplay, it puts an LGBTQ spin on Patrick Swayze’s Ghost to celebrate Taiwan’s queer community in an affectionate, if parodic, way
3/5 stars
When homophobic police detective Ming-han (Greg Hsu Kuang-han) is coerced into a ghost marriage with a recently deceased young man (Austin Lin Po-hung) in Marry My Dead Body, it’s not immediately clear whether he’s more afraid of his betrothed because he’s a ghost or because he’s gay.
Over the course of Taiwanese director Cheng Wei-hao’s energetic and well-intentioned action comedy, Ming-han sees the error of his ways, and emerges as a queer-positive pillar of the community, but it’s a bumpy road to redemption.
The supernatural same-sex nuptials couldn’t have come at a worse time for the cop. Ming-han has just been demoted back to patrolman – where he must work the beat with a criminally underused Gingle Wang Ching – for fouling up a high-stakes drug bust, when he picks up a seemingly innocuous red packet.
Rather than a piece of potential evidence strewn on the side of the road, the packet is a carefully laid trap, one that ensnares Ming-han in an ancient ritual marriage to Mao Mao (Lin), who was recently killed in a hit-and-run.
Initially reluctant to participate in such a bizarre and, in his mind, unnatural ceremony, Ming-han is soon persuaded by Mao Mao’s grandmother (Wang Man-chiao) that his life will be riddled with bad luck if he doesn’t tie the knot.