Two fools: Comedy as dialectical tension in mid-century Chinese cinemas

Abstract

ABSTRACT This paper will trace the complex lineage of Brother Wang and Brother Liu in Taiwanese cinema, beginning with the emergence of a ‘two fools’ (兩傻) genre in imported cinema from Hollywood and Hong Kong, a category which included classic Laurel and Hardy, late Abbott and Costello, the more contemporary Martin and Lewis, Cantonese song and dance film and Mandarin comedies from Cathay featuring the likes of King Hu, Liu Enjia and Jiang Guangchao. When the two fools genre was adapted in Taiwan, an additional social allegory of mainlander and islander solidarity came to the fore: thin actor Zhong Fucai was a local, while fat actor Li Guanzhang arrived from mainland China after 1949. Their unshakeable solidarity and many shared feasts suggest a utopian dimension to the comedy duo, in which homosocial friendship transcends all differences. The visual iconicity of their bodies sharing the frame and the low quality of sound in taiyupian meant that these films often leaned upon the plasmatic appeal of physical comedy instead of dialogue for comic effect, an aesthetic that would continue to dominate taiyupian comedies until the end of the 1960s.