Dynamic Duo

The source is not from a blockbuster pop album, but forms the closer of the 14-minute comedy sketch "Gomoku with Skills" which aired in late September 2025 to kick off the second season of variety show Amazing Night.　

Creator Zhang Xingchao revealed in October 2025 that he had generated the song using AI tool Suno while "feeling tipsy."　

But it was the sketch's success that catapulted Zhang and his partner Li Jiacheng, who perform as the duo Two Aliens, to stardom. Their brand of deliberately nonsensical comedy - which many online describe as "abstract," stands apart from China's more conventional traditions, tapping into a growing appetite among younger viewers for humor that, on the surface, defies logic and structure.

Gomoku, also called "five in a row," is a strategy game played on a Go board, where players must get five stones in a row. The sketch revolves around a young player (Zhang Cheng) trying to win a Gomoku game with a master (Zhang Xingchao) and his student (Li Jiacheng). As he tries to play, master and student deploy an ever more bizarre series of strategies, including throwing pieces around and upending the board, in an effort to distract their opponent.　

Zhang Xingchao is the duo's enigmatic core. His jerky movements are as if he has "spring-loaded joints" and appears blank and emotionless, "as if an alien is doing comedy," many on social media have commented.　

The appeal is a deliberate rejection of traditional comedic logic. The work neither delivers punchlines nor messaging to create a surreal Pythonesque style in which sketches have no clear ending.　

The sketch has been widely described as having "abstract" style, a term borrowed from internet slang that refers to nonsensical humor. The dialogue is like something "from a wild dream," Zhang Xingchao said.　

Zhang Xingchao admits the duo avoids crafting stories because "neither of us are good at it." "There are tons of comedians out there better at storytelling than us," he told NewsChina.　

The work is full of esoteric references that many mainstream viewers would miss. For instance, when the Gomoku school master uses a dusty broom to drive the young challenger away and smears the young man's trousers with dirt, the man cries, "Stop doing that. These are new pants." The master instantly responds, "Do, do, do, do you want to dance?" a line fans of Chinese indie music will recognize as coming from "Do You Want to Dance," the most popular track from veteran Chinese rock band New Pants.　

The skit ends with the performers dancing awkwardly to the sketch's AI-generated theme song. Within days of the episode's broadcast, the song was everywhere.　

High school students to working-class people were doing the viral dance on social media. A raft of celebrities joined the trend, such as Mandopop stars Shan Yichun, Zhou Shen, Lars Huang and Silence Wang. Even Chinese megapop star Lay Zhang featured the dance in his concert at Beijing's iconic Bird's Nest. On short-video platform Douyin, the hashtag "Gomoku with Skills" reached over 10 billion views.　

Besides "Gomoku with Skills," the group presented two more sketches in their "abstract" comedic style on Amazing Night. One of them, "Two Punches All of a Sudden," was also a big hit.　

Despite the perceived mayhem, the 13-minute sketch follows a similar structure to "Gomoku with Skills." It centers on a boxing master (played by Zhang) who founded his fighting style, "Bangbang Punches," on a basic principle: "Everyone lets their guard down sooner or later. That's when your strike with two sudden punches."　

Like "Gomoku with Skills," the sketch is loosely built on the master-disciple dynamic rather than a storyline, and is rife with non-sequitur back-and-forths, both verbal and physical.

Born in 1997 in Central China's Anhui Province, Zhang Xingchao trained as a flight attendant at Anhui Vocational College of Art and later studied drama at Anhui University. To make ends meet, he worked a series of ordinary jobs - restaurant waiter, delivery platform sales and karaoke bar attendant. But his true passion was performing.　

Li Jiacheng's story is also unconventional. Born in 1999, he was among the last graduates of the School of Acting in Sichuan University before the department was closed. Similarly, Li sold cars, worked retail and sold bags on livestreams.　

Fate intervened when Zhang Xingchao and Li met in a comedy workshop held by MeWe Media in Beijing in August 2023. The workshop enlisted a dozen comedians to present sketches.　

An introvert, Zhang sat quietly in the corner during the first few days. But the moment when Li came up and asked to work with him, Zhang said he felt "saved." Li could not explain what drew him to Zhang. "Perhaps there was some aura surrounding him that was calling me," Li told NewsChina.　

They went through various names for their team, none of which stuck. Later, co-stars Lü Yan and Jiang Yi suggested Waixing Cong (外星从). Waixing refers to "alien," while the Chinese character 从 (cong), which means "to follow," is made up of two 人 (ren) characters, which means person, translating perfectly to Two Aliens.　

The name fits Zhang Xingchao and Li, two aliens that found each other in the vastness of the universe.　

Two Aliens' style recalls manzai, a traditional Japanese comedy format that consists of a funny-man, straight-man duo. Two Aliens generally enlist other performers to play straight characters, such as Zhang Cheng who played the young student in "Gomoku with Skills."　

To better collaborate with Zhang Xingchao, Li insists on the "Yes, and" principle of improv comedy, which refuses to reject pitched ideas outright, leading to more inventive and surprising responses. The approach, Li said, makes their collaboration "like a hot knife through butter."　

He told Zhang during the season-2 finale of Amazing Night, which aired on December 12, "If you want to be Don Quixote, I'm always there besides you, as your Sancho."

Their radical stance has divided public opinion and sparked heated discussions over the very definition of modern comedy. Their sketches have been nicknamed "comedy cilantro" - a taste not for everyone.　

For their fans, their works offer a much needed mental escape for young people who are struggling with day-today pressures. The inside jokes particularly appeal to fans of Japanese anime, comics, games and novels (ACGN).　

"I am an ACGN fan, and I can sense both Zhang Xingchao and Li Jiacheng are as well. They hide many inside jokes and memes in their works that only ACGN enthusiasts would recognize. I can catch their humor 100 percent," Lei Ming, a 29-year-old fan of Two Aliens and ACGN culture from Changsha, Hunan Province, told NewsChina.　

And despite the sketch's widely perceived lack of message, Dong Qiangqiang, another fan of Two Aliens and a designer from an architectural design firm in Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province told NewsChina he sees one. "I think Two Aliens have used a metaphor in ‘Gomoku with Skills': traditional Gomoku, just like traditional comedy, is too formal, logical and orderly. However, the sketch, just like Two Aliens' comedy is so unpredictable, improvisational and goes beyond any rules, disciplines and expectation. In an era where planning, efficiency and certainty are highly emphasized, Two Aliens' works might hit our longing for unexpected surprises, improvisational creation and unrestrained imagination," Dong said. But for many on social media, their sketches are a confusing, meaningless mess. Some criticized Two Aliens for overrelying on inside jokes and memes as a lazy replacement for the craft of story writing.　

"I prefer comedy with good narratives and meanings. For instance, my favorite sketch on Amazing Night is ‘All Quiet on the Western Front.' It tells a very touching story and is presented in a beautiful way, just like a short film. Comparatively, Two Aliens' sketches are too casual and illogical, and their performance is deliberately exaggerated. They seem novel in format but hollow in essence. Such fast-food style content may bring some empty laughs but leave no room for deep appreciation," Lin Xiushan, a 28-year-old drama enthusiast from Shanghai and a fan of Amazing Night, told NewsChina.　

The story of "All Quiet on the Western Front," performed by the comic duo Xiaofang Guangming (Yang Yuguang and Li Minglei), is presented much more conventionally.　

The 14-minute sketch which aired on October 11, 2025, tells about a secret friendship between two nameless soldiers who are stationed on the border of two rival states before the outbreak of World War I. With a carefully designed plot twist, the story elicits both laughter and tears by showing the cruelty of war and the beauty of humanity.　

Even Zhang Xingchao's family fails to get the duo's humor. This New Year's Day, Zhang got a video clip from his family showing his grandparents and other senior family members reacting to "Gomoku with Skills" on TV at home. While they seemed glued to the screen, none got the jokes, Zhang said. "They remained completely unmoved, not a single laugh," Zhang told NewsChina.　

No matter whether audiences love it or hate it, Two Aliens do not intend to change. In a comic landscape that expects artists to deliver value and resonance, the duo, with unrestrained creative freedom, conveys a bold idea that comedy can exist merely for comedy's sake instead of a medium of delivering social values or messages.　

They have manifested their unyielding attitude in the lines of "Two Punches All of a Sudden." "We don't pursue winning or losing. We don't pursue happiness, nor do we pursue tears. We just go up there and throw two punches."