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.

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.

The Plot.

It's the end of the century at a corner of the city in a building riddled with crime.

Everyone in the building has turned into zombies.

After Jenny's boyfriend is killed in a zombie attack, she faces the challenge of surviving in the face of adversity.

In order to stay alive, she struggles with Andy to flee danger.

Strange zombie movie that's all over the place but no where near as bad as that idiot on IMDb said.

Break down: The first half is rocking.

The second half is disjointed at best.

The direction sucks for the duration. But for some reason you cannot take your eyes of this film.

I give t a six for chutzpah.

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.

I'm not sure what Shi Cheng means exactly (not that it matters now, after watching it), but I'm sure it doesn't translate into "Zombie Fight Club". I'm not even sure (or wasn't most of the time), why they chose that title. Apart from making this appealing title wise to some viewers (?), I reckon.

But even after understanding somehow, why they chose that title, it's kind of lame. But let's get back to the movie, that has scantily dressed women in it (there's a bit of nudity during a sex scene too, in case you were wondering) and some fighting and shooting in it too. There's a bit of an attempt to make some zombie jokes and other things to that effect, that either kind of work or are annoying. Depending on your taste. The action scenes (stunts) are pretty decent and the actors are pretty ... if that helps