The key to a good joke is the timing. More generally, a joke is funny because of its delivery rather than the content. Canadian stand-up Norm Macdonald is famous for his hilarious execution, which gets people to laugh at things that they really shouldn’t laugh at. As a cishet man, I have the privilege of turning my brain off and enjoying the impeccable comic setups of the many queerphobic jokes in The Gangs, the Oscars, and the Walking Dead (“江湖無難事”). The undeniable humor of these jokes is a problem for the audience (including me), and an even bigger one for the film.
Gangs is about BS (Roy Chiu) and Wenxi (Huang Di-yang; the character’s name roughly translates to “bound to fail”), two childhood friends who decide to make a zombie movie. The production gets derailed, they run out of money, and they end up working for a mob boss (Lung Shao-hua). Their wedding video work for the Boss convinces him to finance their movie, with a proviso: The female protagonist, a pure and innocent high schooler who’s dating her teacher, must be played by his, um, lustful squeeze, Shanny (Eleven Yao). Soon after, she has a fatal disagreement with some poolside concrete. But the show must go on.
