Shi cheng

Went to see this movie with friend because nothing else is on. In a nutshell, the director took the apartment from Dredd, general atmosphere of George Romero movies, some Asian pop-stars, tossed in a blender, and filmed whatever detritus that came out. Fasten your seat belt and prepare for a long ride, because the prologue lasted for a whole hour before the titular zombie fight club starts.

There are some T&A in there, but not enough to justify the ticket price, and not the ones you went in hoping to see (Jessica C for me). My feeling is that the director is familiar with elements from various zombie movies, yet completely missed that zombie movies are always about the human; zombies are forces of nature that creates the survivalist environment which brings out the cruel and selfish tendency within us. Instead we get characters that are just as bland and dumb as the zombies they are fighting. Zombie Battle Royale would be more fitting title for this movie.

The movie has no idea whether it wants to be an action film, body horror, or slap stick comedy. Switching between all three at will. It has all the subtlety of a getaway BMW that is somehow emplaced inside an apartment unit on the top floor, smashing through multiple concrete walls until it's sailing through open air, crashing to the ground with nary a dent. And yes, that scene is in the movie.

Films without plots can be done well given good direction and acting. Well-written films can be good despite bad directors and actors. Zombie Fight Club has no good element in its production.

"So bad it's good" doesn't even fly with this film. The more-American-than-American accents provide the bulk of the humor. The film's focus on the innate evil of humanity (its only constant) oozes away any value a good riffing might redeem it with.

Zombie Fight Club directly takes elements of The Raid and The Walking Dead and removes the elements of 'Redemption'. Instead, the martial arts police are dirty cops and the civilians are plagued by a distinctly East Asian pathology. The crux of Zombie Fight Club is the argument that humankind is innately evil, and, pushed to the limit, will gleefully discard its visage of goodness. Even the two protagonists, who bear a transparent semblance of morality, lack any dignity.

Romero's legacy is dismantled and digitally spit on by Zombie Fight Club. If you want to enjoy a poor zombie movie, stick to films like Redneck Zombies. In the very least, the garage special effects will be more entertaining than Zombie Fight Club's digital massacre.

A building riddled with a menagerie of working girls, criminals and loners find the corridors of their apartment block infested with zombies.

Oh my have things have progressed since Junk Shiryōgari (2000) and Versus (2000) (certainly in the effects department), Zombie Fight Club (2014) is better than the influx of recent DTV walking dead movies globally produced, in contrast to most Asian dead movies its light on humour, tonally it's reminiscent of The Horde (2009), Rammbock/Berlin Dead (2010) mixed with Joe Chien's own twisted incoherent Zombie 108 (2012).

Chien's zombie offering is packed with action, actually wall to wall bloodshed, excellent make-up effects and an abundance of practical and CGI blood which puts some American modest budget zombie films to shame. It's colour palette is dark, accompanied by a pumping soundtrack, it's undeniably fast paced. Oddly it inexplicably interchanges between English and Mandarin and it's a film of unorthodox two halves with no third act.

When it does slowdown it has a fistful of creepy moments but these are few and far between as buxom beauty Jenny played by Jessica Cambensy witnesses her boyfriend, his crew of rappers and strippers come toe to toe with growing army of zombies. After a flash forward a year after the outbreak Jenny has gone all zombie killer sporting a new hair cut and an even tighter costume (yes there's the shameless objectification of women but no more than The Resident Evil franchise tries to gloss over).

What it lacks in plot it makes up for with its kick-ass female and male characters, soldiers and loads of zombie kills, impalement, bullets and action setups. Yes the characters are at times cartoonish and its gratuitous but it's a solid addition to the Asian live action zombie market, if you're in to it.

Zombie Fight Club is not the sort of movie that would win an awards. However, as a fan of campy B movie horror action I enjoyed this quite a bit. Now, there are some flaws for sure and the film is a bit disjointed and falls apart a bit in the second half. But, I digress Zombie Fight Club is a non stop action packed gorefest like Raid Redemption with zombies. As far as that goes this film delivers the blood splattered goods in spades here with a level of carnage that goes past eleven. The people who review and rate this movie on here must not be horror fans or action movie lovers. There are a enough bullets, blood and brutal beatdowns to make the most ardent of action fans wince. The fight choreography is great and Andy On is good as leading man and takes down an army of the undead with guns, sharp and blunt objects as well as using his kung fu skills as well. In Hong Kong cinema this kind of movie is extremely rare and is the 1st movie I have seen like this from there since Bio Zombie. Zombie Fight Club is not as well made as Bio Zombie, but far surpasses it for extreme violence, gore and sheer action. The best/worse actor in Hong Kong Michael Wong appears and is actually decent in this. To see what I'm talking about, check out his awkward performance in Beast Cops. Also, there is a Taiwanese rapper called Mc Hotdog(I plan on looking him up later) and lots of gorgeous skantly clad Chinese woman to take this already insane movie over the top. I thought this is good for what it is and for this type of craziness, I'm all in.

A zombie outbreak leaves the residents of a tower block fighting for their lives. One year later, and survivors Jenny (Jessica Cambensy) and Andy (Andy On) find themselves at the mercy of a schoolteacher turned tyrant who pits the living against the dead in a gladiatorial arena.

According to the quote on the DVD cover, Zombie Fight Club is The Raid meets Dawn of the Dead. Yeah, and I'm Iko Uwais' personal trainer. The fact is-as if you really need to be told-that this Taiwanese action/horror hybrid is nowhere near as good as either of the aforementioned classics. It's got an uneven structure, unlikable characters that it's hard to give a damn about, unimpressive fight action, and lots and lots of gore, the vast majority of which is CGI.

It's not all bad news though: some of the zombie makeup is fairly impressive, there are quite a few very attractive ladies wearing sexy outfits, and we get one sequence that is so audacious that it cannot fail to entertain: while a crippled old man fights zombies with the help of hydraulic power-legs and a chainsaw, Jenny and Andy drive his BMW-parked conveniently in the middle of the apartment building-at speed down a corridor and through an external wall, falling several storeys, both somehow surviving the impact.