Sang faa sau see

Having recently gotten into the asian horror genre, I finally had a chance to watch this movie. Bio Zombie is original in the way it blends comedy, horror, action.....and it works!!

I really liked the transition the film. When you meet Woody Invincible and Crazy Bee, they are far from winning any moral awards. This provides so much humor especially their "tough" guy personas, so you naturally take a liking to the two. Follow that with crossing paths with a couple of gals including hottie babe Rolls, and you have really funny moments!! The way director Wilson Yip progresses the story, you find out about the characters and then he adds the deadly biochemical plot which takes the film to another level. It's not a horror film having you shut your eyes or watch through the cracks of your fingers, but you find yourself drawn into the story following the plight of our unlikely heroes.

VERY good chemistry between the cast. Jordan Lee (Woody) and Sam Lee (Bee) really seem like two buddies who get into all sort of trouble. Their personalities, facial expressions, mannerisms are all assets to their respective characters. Angela Tong Ying-Ying (Rolls) is good as well and flaunts her sex appeal very well! The bathroom scenes with her and Woody are hilarious! Even the Sushi guy plays a vital part!

Credit goes to Yip for giving a shopping mall a very unique and creepy look due to great cinematography. As more and more zombies appear, the twist from comedic entertainment shifts to "struggle to survive" entertainment. The great thing is this film doesn't take itself too seriously and it looks like they had a lot of fun shooting this film. Trust me, you'll have fun seeing it too.

This movie is great fun! I read a comment that said it was like mallrats with zombies, which is exactly what i thought while watching. The two main characters Bee (Sam Lee - who is on his usually funny form) and Jordan Chan's Invincible, while being both entertaining, offensive and lacking morals (they don't worry about mugging people, running people over or generally bullying people) do show some redeeming qualities towards the end (Bee -"I don't want to be a zombie, i'd rather die" what a line!). OK so the zombie (sub)plot does take a while to get in place, but the comedy does provide entertainment up until the zombies all start shuffling in. The pacing is great, with scenes of tension (the handcuff key in mouth scene)and cheesy emotion (The Sushi zombie giving a present to that girl) pushing along the narrative and character development to a good standard. Before watching it i was expecting a gore-fest, but gore fans will be disappointed, scenes of zombie-culling are quite brief and restrained, but fans of comedy-horror or zombie films should enjoy. To be honest the film does play as a bit of a spoof with moments of clichéd and cheesy emotion and the whole computer game idea towards the end. Although the ending does shaft the comedy element for emotion (although i think its played for laughs) and the ending is a bit of shock, it is overall an enjoyable experience and if you do enjoy this check out Peter Jackson's Braindead!

Today, on a whim, I decided to pick up the Media Blasters DVD of the Hong Kong living dead flick "BioZombie". I'd heard only a little about it before, and popped it in expecting a trashily enjoyable rip-off of Dawn of the Dead. Well, I was wrong, and right, in equal doses. And having finished the film only minutes ago, I am still unable to wipe the smile off of my face.

Woody and Bee (Jordan Chan and Sam Lee) are two slacker employees of a mostly bootleg VCD shop (changed to DVD for less familiar American audiences) at a shopping mall, who spend their days playing videogames, harassing customers, ditching work, and finding clever (and riotous) ways to make extra cash. Running an errand for their absent boss, they accidentally run over a man carrying a suitcase containing "soda". They give the drink to the injured but still breahing man, not realizing its actually a biological weapon, and then stuff him in their trunk. Shortly after they've gone back to the mall, the man has strangely disappeared...and you can guess what will ensue.

As seems to be the case with so many of the films I've reviewed on IMDB, the plot of this one is razor thin and merely a set-up. It's the clever execution that takes this film to the comedy/horror stratosphere...not to mention, surprisingly, the acting. Chan and Lee are fantastic in their roles, and if this movie gets seen by enough genre fans they could easily give Bruce Campbell a run for his money as the top shelf of smartass horror movie heroes. The first thirty minutes or so of the movie have little to do with zombies, and merely offer a chance for the camera to follow this duo around during their everyday exploits, giving the film the feel of an Asian "Mallrats". In fact, one could almost mistake the first act of the film for a Kevin Smith comedy. The two terrific actors play off of each other like a smarter vision Jay and Silent Bob, making up for what they lack in lovable doofus-ness with almost incomparable cynicism. Trey Parker and Matt Stone would be very, very proud.

Although the "zombies in a shopping mall" motif is clearly meant to be an homage to George Romero's all-time fright classic "Dawn of the Dead", by no means is this what I would consider "a horror film". It's actually just a very, very dark comedy, much in the same vein as such wonderful fan favorites as "Return of the Living Dead", "Re-Animator", and "Dead Alive". However, it's a bit less slapsticky than any of those films, and a bit darker in its humor, too. It's also complete with references to a good number of horror classics. One sequence, for example, is lifted almost shot-for-shot right ouf of Dario Argento's "OPERA" (but believe me, Argento fans won't mind!), and Woody and Bee's hitting the "man with the soda" is followed by a hillarious nod to the then-recent "I Know What You Did Last Summer". The film also manages to do a great job of paying homage to Romero's "Dead" films. One couple in the movie clearly a wonderfully caricatured update of "Night of the Living Dead"'s Harry and Helen Cooper, and another character plays like the direct descendant of "Bub" from "Day of the Dead".

Gorehounds might be a bit disappointed, as the violence is only slightly more graphic than the average American horror film, and zombie fans will perhaps be a little bit let down that the film is significantly less frightening than the newly released Resident Evil. However, I doubt very much that this will dampen their enjoyment very much. BioZombie is a real treat for horror fans, a chance to sit back and laugh WITH a zombie movie, not at it.

The DVD from Media Blasters is a pretty good package. It presents the movie in widescreen (1.85:1) and it looks pretty good despite being non-anamorphic. The sound is a suitable Dolby Digital stereo in either original Cantonese or dubbed English (yes, there ARE optional English subtitles) but the extras are unfortunately limited to some lobbycards and a few trailers...none of which are for this film. However, I'd recommend that horror fans plant the $24.95 for this purchase. It's a fabulously entertaining film, and if it makes its way among genre fans, this could be a Friday night party movie for years to come.

My Grade: A

Well, i'm extremely pleased I saw this film when I had the chance. I managed to see it late one night on 'Film Four Extreme', not knowing what i'd be in for. I was expecting a cheap zombie effort that I would have to force myself to sit through. But I was wrong!

First of all I have not seen the newly 'dubbed' version of this film and do not wish to either. I have seen two different versions which different subtitles. The first was on 'Film four' which seemed to have been translated by someone british, I could tell because most of the slang was british. The other version of subtitiling is from the HK region 0 DVD and NOT the newly release US version of this film which I think has the dubbing. The DVD subtitling isn't great because some of it is translated very poorly, whereas the 'Film four' version of this is grammar perfect.

From the very opening shots of the film I actually found myself laughing! Could this be!? A horror film that is actually truly funny and isn't 'Return of the Living Dead'! Two characters called 'Crazy Bee' and 'Woody Invincible' work at a VCD shop in a neon like indoor mall, and accidently run into this person in their car which is inevitably a zombie. They take the body back to the mall in the trunk of their car only to release that its missing and starting all kinds of trouble in the mall. That's the basic plot from there without giving anything away. But I assure you, you'll find yourself laughing! There are some classic moments in it.

Now, for the Zombie genre horror people out there I still suggest checking this out. As far as I know there are few zombie films out there that seem to be able to work with comedy. A couple that spring to mind are 'Return of the Living Dead' and 'Brain Dead'. Although Bio Zombie may not be as good as either of these in effects, its still an equally great zombie film. There are minimal gore scenes and no truly amazing SFX but it doesn't let it's low budget appereance hurt the film at all. Still there are some great gore scenes, such as the 'tap in the face' where Bee jams a tap pipe into a zombies head and turns on the fawcett and blood comes out the end! Not to mention a scene with a drill in the mouth! There are good points to be had for the true zombie genre horror fan. If you do get the chance to see this on 'Film four' then I suggest you do, because this version of the subtitles are a lot better.

Should this movie be described as a Hong Kong take on Dawn of the Dead? No. Return of the Living Dead? No, certainly not. Mallrats with zombies? Sounds better.

The point of this movie is not to provide stark raving terror, deep social commentary, or five gallons of blood per second. This movie is fun. Follow the lives of a pair of small-time punks running a VCD shop, the likable Crazy Bee and the incredibly named Woody Invincible, as they try to get their boss's car and end up accidentally unleashing a zombie plague. Oops. But even before the first zombie shows up, the duo has gotten into some amusing scrapes and got out of them with bluster that for once is not unlikable. They may be jerks, but at least their the kind of jerks you can see yourself hanging out with.

When the zombies show up, the movie stays focused on Woody and Bee. It seems so wrong to say that this movie is character driven, but it is. Not it a dramatic sense, but in the sense that the characters and not the zombies are the main focus of the movie. That surprisingly doesn't hurt the film, as the interactions are definetly between our heroic duo and the zombies are generally amusing.

But the movie knows when to get serious. The last ten minutes or so switch from humor to seriousness (save one speech from Bee) suddenly and yet without missing a step. The last ten minutes seem to come from a "real" zombie movie and are filled with emotion and pathos. It's kind of startling, but it also fits.

All in all, I definetly recommend this movie. It is one of my favorites. Just go in expecting humor. Heck, it's best to go into the movie not knowing anything about it.