Z-108 qi cheng

Well I must say that I was also riding along on the hype-wave about this being Taiwan's first zombie movie, so I had put up some big hopes and expectations for the movie, especially as I was really surprised by "Juan of the Dead" ("Juan de los Muertos") from Cuba. So these movies just go to prove that you don't need a massive backing up from Hollywood in order to make a good zombie movie.

And now having seen "Z108" I will say that I wasn't surprised, and I think that they actually managed to pull it off nicely enough. Sure there were some mistakes here and there, but in overall, I think that Joe Chein managed to make an impressive movie, so Taiwan can now be ticked off on the zombie world map.

The story in "Z108" is about a scientist who had discovered a new gene, but the gene caused unforeseen changes and mutations. With a couple of disasters striking his life, the material gets unleashed upon a part of Taipei, and we find ourselves along with a SWAT group, as they strike down upon the infected area. But in the middle of the chaos is a local gang, totally unaware of the chaos that is unfolding around them. The two groups, SWAT and gang members, have to unite and put aside their differences in order to overcome the common threat of the ravenous zombies.

Yeah, the storyline itself was fairly average for a zombie movie, and it wasn't really anything that you hadn't seen before in other movies of this genre. But still, it was entertaining enough.

The zombie make-up and effects were actually quite good, although it wasn't as gore-filled as some of the Western or Japanese zombie movies can be. But there was a decent enough amount of blood and mayhem, and I was kept entertained by it, though I could have wished for a bit more.

As for the acting, well I think that people were doing good enough jobs with their roles. It wasn't really anything outstanding or overly impressive, but it was above low-budget standards. And I wasn't familiar with anyone in the movie, as I haven't really had much chance to watch Taiwanese movies in general, so it was nice to see a movie with all new faces and not have any prior idea of their acting and previous characters associated with their faces.

There were a couple of things that didn't fall into my personal liking in this movie. The first was the speed of which people turned into zombies, it took less than a couple of minutes; but to make matters worse, then for some reason, newly deceased people that came back as zombies had decaying and mangled faces, even though prior to dying their faces were intact. That was just a tad too stupid. The second thing was the rip off of "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" with the human flesh-leathery facial mask that the 'pervert' was wearing, it was so unnecessary, and it really brought the movie down a bit in originality. And finally I wasn't overly impressed with the death metal music in the movie. Yeah, I listen to metal myself every day, and nothing much aside from metal, but the metal music in this movie was so misplaced and out of touch with the rest of the movie, plus it just wasn't that great to listen to anyway.

Aside from these small irritations, then "Z108" was actually a good movie in itself, and a well worthy addition to the DVD collection of any zombie aficionado. And for it being Taiwan's first zombie movie, then way to go! Thumbs up.

Zombie108: A violent adult Zombie film, definitely not for the squeamish. Zombie virus outbreak in Taipei, police and army combat zombies but then come under attack from gang members. Theres even a serial killer who takes advantage of the situation. The film is somewhat confusing as the dialogue is in English, Mandarin and Japanese without subtitles but generally you can follow whats going on.

Diehard Zombie fans will like it.

I find it had to see why anyone has rated this film as anything above terrible.

I love zombie movies (usually) and I also really enjoy movies from outside the UK, especially Hong Kong Cinema. However this film was such a let down I find it hard to put into words.

I will start with the acting which is some of the worst I have seen in any movie, even the Zombies are acted badly! Secondly The camera work is all over the place to the point that it makes the viewer feel dazed and loose concentration.

The story is poor taste and seems to just look for excuses for nudity. The film tries to shock and fails terribly. The whole film is patchy and seems to be really badly put together jumping from scene to scene often lacking in sense and direction.

My conclusion: Save an hour and a half of your life and skip this one.

As a virus sweeps the city, it falls into a bloody zombie- apocalypse and array citizens come together to survive the nightmare.

Yes we've seen it all before but what writer/director Joe Chien does have like his semi-side-quel Zombie Fight Club (2014) is a dark and ominous atmosphere.

Following the opening of a large abandoned metropolitan area where a woman wanders around and finds a mass of hungry zombies we are then presented with a flashback of how the city became deserted. Chien borrows from the best, which is a good thing but sadly Zombie 108 biggest slip up is an unnecessary off-putting subplot where a sordid pervert kidnaps women and traps them in his apartment. He keeps them locked up, tortures, rapes and murders them.

It's messy, chaotic, graphic and at times borderline incoherent in keeping with many Asian zombie outings. That said, it does have its eerie creepy moments, it's played serious and the zombies are well executed. However, you'd be excused if you skipped this mainly due to the distasteful secondary plot and went straight to Chien's more rounded Zombie Fight Club.

There have been an increasing number of cheesy, low budget zombie films made in recent years, such as THE ZOMBIE DIARIES and APOCALYPSE OF THE DEAD, films which offer their own minuscule-priced takes on the classics but often falling down due to the poor expertise of the crew members making them. ZOMBIE 108 is no different, and in its defence it attempts to rip off not just one genre but instead three distinct ones, with generally poor effects.

Firstly, it's clear that somebody watched and enjoyed THE RAID before they made this, because half of the characters are SWAT team members whose long-running feud with some ugly gang members provides a backdrop to the zombie action. Then we have the zombies themselves, the usual bunch of shuffling, entrail-grabbing monsters, who always seem to appear in badly-edited montages. This effect may be utilised to hide the rubbish nature of the zombie makeup.

Finally, if that wasn't enough, writer/director Joe Chien throws in a flesh-masked pervert who keeps a dungeon full of chained naked girls and uses zombies to power his own electricity generator! The Texas CHAINSAW influence is clear, but it means that, tonally, the movie is all over the place, ranging from the ridiculous to the repulsive. One moment we're sitting through another hackneyed zombie attack and the next we're watching this slobbering rapist having his way with a naked and nubile young woman. It's pretty nasty.

Thankfully, the film is so poorly made that none of it means much, and even the sicker moments are amusing rather than disturbing. Joe Chien acts like an overactive child when directing, with his irritating jumpy editing and choice of death metal to irradiate the ears of sensitive viewers. The film is littered with amusing errors, like somebody turning into a zombie complete with decayed makeup in the space of two minutes, and more bad acting than you can shake a stick at. My favourite character is the black guy, a wannabe Parkour expert who does these little jumps over tables and the like in a bid to convince us of his athletic abilities; such moments are truly hilarious.

The novelty factor is that this is Taiwan's first zombie movie, but unfortunately it lacks any cultural awareness or difference to the bog-standard low grade horror film from any country on this earth: people running around aimlessly and doing very little. It's a bore.