The Twins Effect (2003) October 4, 2008
Posted by Cal in : Horror, Comedy, Action, Supernatural , add a commentDirector: Dante Lam; Donnie Yen Main cast: Gillian Chung; Charlene Choi; Ekin Cheng; Edison Chen; Anthony Wong Territory: Hong Kong
Duke Dekotes and his band of European vampires come to Hong Kong in search of the unholy grail: a tome called “Day for Night”, which will make him all but invincible to his human prey. Reeve (Ekin Cheng), a vampire hunter, and his new assistant Gypsy (Gillian Chung) set out to stop them. Meanwhile, Reeve’s sister Helen (Charlene Choi) befriends a small cult of “new age” vampires, including their leader Kazaf (Edison Cheng), a move not looked upon favourably by her sibling…
Vampires are the most overused horror monster, and it’s hard to come up with something using them that’s going to be genuinely scary these days (take the recent 30 Days of Night) and Twins Effect adds nothing new to the genre at all. Viewers of Buffy the Vampire Slayer will recognise many of the themes and devices of the film, and this often feels like a Hong Kong version of the popular US show but without the unique wit and infectious flippancy. But Buffy’s appeal lay more in the characters and the humour rather than the rather uninventive monsters she and her friends fought on a weekly basis for nine years, and Twins Effect diverts itself from the horror element so often you sometimes forget quite what everyone’s doing.
The film doesn’t quite pan out like you’d imagine it to – for one thing, the Twins don’t actually team up until very late in the movie – and this works in the film’s favour, I feel. The main plotline of the evil vampire Dekotes (Mickey Hardt – not to be confused with the Grateful Dead drummer!) killing princes and becoming all-powerful disappears for so long you really could have done with a refresher by the end of the film. In between the action packed opening where Reeve attacks a battalion of the undead (including Bey Logan – so that’s where he went) and the special effects heavy climax, we get a collection of comedy skits, action set pieces, tense drama and romantic scenes. Some scenes work better than others, but surprisingly none of them are awful.
I once tried to listen to a Twins song, but discovered 15 seconds into it that I hated their music. They sounded pouty even in an upbeat saccharin pop song. Their appearance in an updated TV version of Journey to the West (the title of which escapes me) made me want to throw things at the screen – mainly because they were being pouty. Charlene, the most talented, acting-wise, of the pair is quite pouty in places but otherwise this is an annoyance-free appearance for the Twins. I wouldn’t go as far as to say that they gave stellar performances that brought a tear to my eye, but the fact that I didn’t want them to become vampire fodder is quite a progression. I don’t think anyone will strongly object to me calling Edison Chen vile (gee, I hope he doesn’t get gangsta on my ass for saying so), but he reins in his immense foulness to give quite a passable performance of a “nice” vampire.
These “new age” vampires (headed by Chen and Anthony Wong) are somewhat similar to those in George RR Martin’s novel Fevre Dream in that they have stopped sucking blood from human victims in favour of drinking a bottled variety, but this is not expanded upon in any great detail, which is a pity.
Instead we get a couple of cameos. Jackie Chan appears in two scenes, and seems out of place in both. In the first he’s getting married to Karen Mok, in what the opening titles refer to as a “special friendly appearance” (?), who is a raging alcoholic. In the second, he has a small action scene and a bit of stuntwork (although he’s clearly wired when he climbs a pole, a la Project A). Although a fan of Chan, I feel his appearances kind of detract from the feel of the film as, let’s face it, his presence does tent to overshadow things.
Twins Effect is quite like a visit to the dentist where discover you don’t need any work doing and all of the assistants are pretty. I ended up quite enjoying it, actually.
Dark Water (2002) April 8, 2008
Posted by Cal in : Horror, Supernatural, 2000s films , 4 commentsDirector: Hideo Nakata Cast: Hitomi Kuroki; Rio Kanno; Shigemitsu Ogi Territory: Japan Production Company: Honogurai mizu no soko kara
A bitter custody battle is being fought by Yoshimi (Hitomi Kuroki) against her husband for their six year old daughter Ikuko (Rio Kanno). Her ex-husband is playing dirty, using tales of Yoshimi’s previous psychological problems to discredit her. Rattled, Yoshimi rents a new apartment for herself and Ikuko and tries to get her life back on track with a new job. But the apartment is old and the ceiling leaks – not to mention noisy, as a child’s footsteps can often be heard from the room above. Yoshimi starts to feel uneasy when a girl’s red bag is found and can’t seem to be thrown away, and then she starts seeing a small child upstairs matching the description of a missing girl…
From the director of Ring, which was probably most casual viewers’ first exposure to Asian horror films, Dark Water continues in a similar spooky style which seems to be everywhere nowadays.
Shunning special effects and gore, the film instead relies on making the mundane seem menacing through implication, music and reaction shots. Which, let’s face it, could easily fall flat on its arse. Dark Water doesn’t quite fall on its arse, but after seeing it I’m not entirely sure why. The imagery seems a little over-used – creepy silent kids and things seen out of the corner of the eye being the order of the day. The red bag that continually turns up to alarm Yoshimi could seem laughable if not handled properly, as can the mounting menace of a water stain on the ceiling. But, to give the film its due, it never does, and a decent sense of quiet menace continues nicely throughout the film.
It’s just that the whole mystery of the film is rather easy to figure out, and by about the halfway mark, you’re well ahead of the game. This is the film’s most disappointing quality, as it is a very watchable experience. The film is very ably acted, and particular mention must go to the performance of Rio Kanno as the six year old Ikuko who spent the majority of the film soaking wet, which couldn’t have been too pleasant.
Although Dark Water is a pleasantly creepy way to pass the time, I really don’t think it has the legs to stand up to repeated viewings. But if you’ve never seen it, it’s well worth the price of the rental.
Ebola Syndrome (1996) March 24, 2008
Posted by Cal in : Horror, Exploitation , 5 commentsDirector: Herman Yau Cast: Anthony Wong; Angel Wong; Lo Meng; Vincent Wan Territory: Hong Kong Production Company: Jing’s Production Ltd
There’s a good chance that the Ebola virus will wipe out humanity at some point. It’s highly contagious, incurable and has a ridiculously high mortality rate. Which makes for potentially shocking and inevitably sensationalistic movie material. If the virus does break out on a large scale, though, it’s unlikely we will see the events of Herman Yau’s cult exploitation movie Ebola Syndrome played out for real. At least, I hope not…
Anthony Wong plays Kai, a psychotic rapist and murderer from Hong Kong, who flees the police to make a new life for himself in South Africa working in a Chinese restaurant. His boss (former Venom Lo Meng) has trouble finding merchants to sell him meat, so he does a deal with a local tribe suffering from an outbreak of the Ebola virus to seel him cheap pork. Kai comes into contact with the virus when he casually rapes an infected tribeswoman and becomes a carrier for the disease, which he starts to spread – at first unwittingly, and then deliberately.
Ebola Syndrome is sleazy as hell and pretty much unforgivable on any level. There’s always something nasty being done to someone or something either living or dead (there’s a shot of a dead mouse getting run over which is particularly gratuitous and pointless, and do we really need to see Wong slice up three frogs in one prolonged shot?). All of the characters are inherently unlikeable – even Kai’s boss (the most “normal” of the bunch) only hires him because he’ll work for low wages as he’s a wanted criminal. Oh, and let’s not forget Lily (Angel Wong), who very nearly became one of Kai’s victims in Hong Kong and who accidentally stumbles on him again in South Africa. She can’t be near him without vomiting as she claims she can “really recognise his scent of smell”. Yeah, all right…
With such a crew of amoral and unsympathetic characters, there is little drama. There is, however, what appears like an attempt at gross-out humour throughout the film (Wong Jing is the producer, after all) which, if you like that sort of thing, might raise a few laughs. And fans of Yau and Wong’s previous collaboration The Untold Story are treated to another “human flesh served to restaurant patrons” subplot.
It has to be said that the depiction of the symptoms of the virus are fanciful at best and don’t seem to bear much resemblance to the real thing. The sufferers have a tendency to be right as rain one minute then suddenly fall to the ground in spasms, making for some unintentional hilarity. Later on in the movie things are taken in a more serious direction with the introduction of Sergeant Yeung (Vincent Wan) and his team as they try to track down Kim and evade the virus, and the focus shifts away from Kim for a while.
I can see why Ebola Syndrome has such a cult following, with its gross comedy, gore and so forth, but there is just too much nastiness in there that just put me off – and animal violence in movies is a complete taboo for me (live chickens are killed on screen). I understand that the current Hong Kong version is as uncut as it’s likely to be, but it is clear that some scenes have been trimmed for violent content and the part where Kim slices off a woman’s tongue is quite obviously cut. If a fully uncut version becomes available, I think I’ll pass…
Heaven and Hell (1978) February 2, 2008
Posted by Cal in : Horror, 1970s films, Kung Fu, Wacko, Supernatural , 3 commentsDirector: Chang Cheh Cast: Lee I-Min, Sun Chien, Phillip Kwok, Chiang Sheng, Lo Meng, Fu Sheng Territory: Hong Kong Production Company: Shaw Brothers
A man and woman are kicked out of the Court of Heaven on trumped up charges of bringing shame onto the Kingdom. Reincarnated as a taxi driver, Xin Ling (Lee I-Min) courageously takes on and kills a gangster harassing Chen Ding (Fu Sheng) and his sweetheart (Jenny Tseng), but is himself mortally wounded in the conflict. Now sent to hell, Xin Ling applies for leniency when the annual heavenly Buddha happens to appear pretty much as soon as he gets there. In another stroke of luck, the Venoms themselves are in hell and keen to get out, and the heavenly Buddha allows them all to fight their way out.
The more perceptive of my readership have probably noticed a leaning towards the “spooky” in my Hong Kong film viewings of late, and I’ve always had a bit of an interest in this film as it looked like a wacky bit of fun. The reality, though, is a film just a bit too out there for my tastes.
You can’t fault the film for being different. We start off in heaven in this three act film, a section which of course has a strong fantasy feel to it, and reminded me a little of the film Na Cha the Great. It soon becomes apparent that the first two sections of the film are just setting the scene for the “Hell” part as the “Heaven” section barely lasts ten minutes before switching to modern day Earth. The Mortal World is the most striking part of the film visually, which, for reasons unfathomable to me, is portrayed in a kind of theatrical way as a stage play complete with stylised sets and props (and a couple of musical numbers from Jenny Tseng which are surprisingly not too bad). Fu Sheng takes on a gang of dancers pretending to be thugs in a fight scene without sound effects of any kind and with visible lack of contact. It’s a very brave style choice, and definitely something I’ve not seen before. Unfortunately, I don’t think it really pays off. The film then confusingly switches to a more realistic, external setting for the encounter between Fu Sheng, Lee I-Min and the gang boss played by Kong Do.
The lion’s share of the screen time goes to the Hell sequence, but this is interspersed with flashbacks to various periods in the world’s history when the Venoms’ backstories are told. Hell itself is primarily made up of cheesy sets, cheesy costumes (Hell’s workers are kind of like human pigs) and ultra cheesy lighting. There are a few torture scenes and a little moralising along the way, but basically, the Hell sequence is just a prelude to the introduction of the Venoms and the film becomes a Kung Fu-fest from there on in. While the Venom stories are good, the whole film just descends into a fragmented mess and I couldn’t wait for the whole thing to finish.
You could walk in on Heaven and Hell at various points and think you’re watching a fantasy film, an avant-garde 70’s pop art piece, a comedy, a horror, a period Kung Fu flick, a modern day actioner and a musical variety show. With so many elements involved, it was sure to turn out badly, and Heaven and Hell was a real struggle for me to sit through. You’ll never see another film like it, but that’s meant more of a warning than a recommendation.
The Dead and the Deadly (1983) January 30, 2008
Posted by Cal in : Horror, Comedy, Supernatural, 1980s films , add a commentDirector: Wu Ma Cast: Sammo Hung; Wu Ma; Lam Ching-Ying; Cherie Chung Territory: Hong Kong Production Company: Golden Harvest
A funeral director’s assistant (Sammo Hung) becomes convinced that his recently deceased friend Lu Cho (Wu Ma) has been murdered and takes steps to prove it. However, it turns out that Lu Cho, along with his accomplices, is faking his death in order to get his hands on a fortune. When Sammo starts getting too suspicious, Lu Cho “appears” to Sammo as a ghost, insisting that his death was by natural causes so that his friend will stop digging for the truth. When Lu Cho is then murdered by his co-conspirators, and the real ghost of Lu Cho appears to Sammo telling him this time that he met with foul play, Sammo doesn’t want to know. So the spirit of the dead man haunts Sammo until he agrees to help him bring the murderers to justice.
What sets Sammo Hung apart from all of his contemporaries is his work in the horror/comedy genre, a little sub-niche that he pretty much made his own and returned to regularly during the eighties and early nineties. While Jackie Chan was busy being the happy-go-lucky everyman hero, Sammo was messing about with chicken’s blood, body painting and Taoist priests. This Wu Ma vehicle is one of the odder entries in the genre, but it does have its moments.
The humour in the first hour of the film is extremely lowbrow and juvenile, something I’ve noticed in other Wu Ma films. There’s a scene where Sammo goes to a brothel and munches on some Qing equivalent of Viagra which is painfully unfunny. The only plus points are a couple of good gags involving an artificially aged Lam Ching-Ying, who needs others to help him with his dynamic showmanship. The scene with the apparent corpse of Lu Cho having his gold teeth removed is funny on first viewing but gets a little tired upon repeats.
Just when things start getting really desperate, a strange thing happens – The Dead and the Deadly actually becomes quite entertaining. Things kick off when Lu Cho gets killed for real and starts haunting Sammo in a scene that feels like a dry run for the film that would be its spiritual successor – 1986’s Where’s Officer Tuba? Things get more frantic when Sammo gets possessed and the robbers are revealed and all manor of spooky goings-on start occurring.
As with other films in this genre, some knowledge of Chinese folklore is a definite advantage to getting the most out of the film. Although the special effects are very crude by today’s standard (and even by the west’s standard for 1983, to be honest) enjoyment isn’t hampered too much. While The Dead and the Deadly isn’t anywhere near the top of my list of spooky comedies, it does have a few neat touches and, taken as a piece of superficial entertainment may give some enjoyment. Personally, though, I’d say you can’t beat the sublime Encounters of the Spooky Kind and the Sammo Hung produced Mr Vampire.
Seeding of a Ghost (1983) December 29, 2007
Posted by Cal in : Horror, Supernatural, 1980s films , 5 commentsDirector: Richard Yeung Cast: Phillip Ko; Norman Chu; Maria Yuen; Tin Mat Territory: Hong Kong Production Company: Shaw Brothers
Chow (Phillip Ko) is a taxi driver whose wife Irene (Maria Yuen) is having an affair with a casino gambler named Fong (Norman Chu). When Irene is raped by a pair of youths and dies in an attempt to escape, Chow summons her spirit with the aid of a mono-brow Black Magic priest to exact revenge on all guilty parties. But the ultimate revenge is hinted at by a prophesy of a son carrying out the final justice, and as no one involved has offspring, the warning is not heeded. But they had reckoned without the seeding of a ghost…
Reported to be the third and final film in the Black Magic series (although it shares no cast and has a different director, leading me to think it might be a spurious claim), it cannot be denied that Seeding of a Ghost is a pile of utter trash. But it can also be an entertaining pile of utter trash.
The film starts out hinting at trouble ahead when Chow knocks over a priest in his taxi, only to find the old guy is safe and well in his back seat and eager for a ride home. We then forget all about that and the focus shifts to soft-core pornography for a while. Quite a while, in fact. Irene gets her kit off at the drop of a hat in some of the most gratuitous nude scenes I’ve ever seen. For example, she’s shown playing about with Norman Chu on the beach (I think it was him and not Phillip Ko, but to be honest I wasn’t paying too much attention) when her top gets ripped off and she playfully runs after him in slow motion. And just so you get the message, we zoom in on her bouncing breasts for a few seconds. Now that scene could possibly be defended (except for the boob-zoom shot) as showing the blossoming of her illicit relationship with Fong but a little while later we see her starkers in the shower. Accompanied by sleazy sax muzak, we watch her wash and zoom in yet again on her boobs and…well, there’s a fair bit of full-frontal nudity in the film. This kind of thing elicits many reactions in people, but to be honest I thought it was just funny. Not the actual nudity itself, but the way in which it is so desperately and cynically used – a hallmark of late-era Shaw Brothers productions, sadly.
With this in mind, it is somewhat surprising that the rape scene that follows is not as exploitative as it could have been. True, her assailants do smack her around considerably (and would probably prevent the film getting an uncut release in the UK, I suspect) but this is not in the same ballpark as Sammo Hung’s Iron Fisted Monk, whose rape scene was purely meant to titillate viewers. This sets up the revenge plot for the second half of the movie when Chow seeks out the priest he knocked over at the start of the film to get revenge on the killers.
All manner of nastiness follows, such as people vomiting worms and unwittingly eating brains and drinking blood. Fong’s wife becomes possessed and needs the help of a Taoist priest (while she’s naked, obviously). The effects are obviously low budget, but as with most things of this nature, there are one or two cool effects in with all the cheap make-up and puppetry. The “creature” effects (inspired, no doubt, by John Carpenter’s The Thing) are particularly poor and I suspect that the DVD age hasn’t helped matters very much by showing all the limitations so clearly. The animation sequence for the “seeding” is quite good, however, and is similar to the effects in Wu Ma’s Dead and the Deadly from the same year.
From all the buzz surrounding the DVD release of Seeding of a Ghost, it is evidently a much-loved piece of eighties Asian horror. I have no doubt at all that in its day it would held its own with many other similar films from the lower end of the genre, and it is certainly still watchable if you can turn a blind eye to its faults. One final note: I would recommend watching this film with the Cantonese audio track, as the Mandarin track seemed dull and lifeless.
The Haunted School (2006) July 16, 2007
Posted by Cal in : Horror, Supernatural , 2 commentsDirector: Chin Man-Kei Cast: Theresa Fu Wing, Amanda Lee, Stephen Cheung Territory: Hong Kong Production Company: Fortune Star
Teenagers, eh? It’s a wonder any of them survive into their twenties. If they’re not being chased by some homicidal serial-killing maniac, they’re being picked off like flies by some supernatural force that the post-pubescent population is either immune to or blissfully ignorant of.
You can probably tell from the title that The Haunted School is in the latter camp. For reasons that are never explained, four boys are introduced into a previously girls’ only boarding school. Although the sexes are kept separate as much as possible, contact is inevitable and rampaging hormones do their duty. Unfortunately, the school’s number one rule is “falling in love is not allowed” (unusual for a girls’ only school, I thought). There seems to be some wisdom in this rule though, as twenty years previously a fire ravaged the school resulting in two deaths and the stirrings of lust between the kids has reawakened something evil in the school that starts pulling the children into another dimension.
The Haunted School is typical teen horror all the way. It’s unlikely anyone above the age of eighteen will find it particularly frightening, although it does achieve a few good scares along the way. This is simply because it throws so many of them at you that a few of them are bound to be effective.
There are some decent ideas in here (I quite liked the permanent shadows on the wall) but most of the time the film relies on clichés – the flashbacks to the original incident show that it occurred on a stormy night with lightning flashing in the sky, blah de blah. Also, the kids’ reactions are just bizarre at times. One boy, after seeing his missing friend dragged through into the netherworld, simply walks calmly away. Also, the sudden appearance of hitherto nonexistent doors seems to cause a breakdown in intelligence: “Hey, that door wasn’t there before! Let’s go and have a look at what’s inside!”
There are far too many tired ideas in this to make it work, and the attempt at fleshing out the characters fails and just makes the film drag. But if you’re young and not too demanding, you might find something to like in here.
Oily Maniac (1976) June 1, 2007
Posted by Cal in : Horror, 1970s films, Wacko, Bad Films , add a commentDirector: Hoh Mung-Wa Cast: Danny Lee, Chan Ping, Ku Feng Territory: Hong Kong Production Company: Shaw Brothers
It must have seemed like a great idea at the time: a sort of superhero-cum-monster movie set in Malaysia with lots and lots of topless ladies and the shark theme from Jaws. The title alone sold it for me – any film called Oily Maniac is a must-have as far as I’m concerned.
Danny Lee plays the eponymous Maniac – a polio victim who gains his powers when his mentor, shortly before his execution for murder, gives him the key to superhuman powers. All he has to do is dig a hole in his own house (which is built upon some kind of bewitched ground) and the magical oil will bestow its power. What it boils down to is this: if he covers himself head to toe in oil (of any kind), he becomes an invincible killing machine. He can switch between two forms at will: an oil slick (great for sliding along the ground or ceiling and slipping into the tiniest of cracks) or a more-or-less human form (great for throttling his victims). The Maniac then goes on a killing rampage righting the wrongs he sees in his everyday life as a clerk in a solicitor’s office.
I’ve just reread that plot synopsis and realised I’ve just made Oily Maniac sound a hell of a lot more exciting than it really is. It tries to be both a superhero movie (the monster is kind of like the Incredible Hulk in a way, and the mild-mannered Danny Lee character is like any number of superhero alter-ego average Joes) and a horror film. It doesn’t really achieve either thanks largely to some terrible – and I do mean terrible – special effects. Plus, it’s about as scary as an episode of Postman Pat. The oil slick effect wouldn’t fool a five year old today, and it probably didn’t look too convincing back then, either. As for the human form of the Maniac – well, it’s a guy in a (badly made) rubber suit. Add to this the blatant ripping-off of the Jaws theme tune whenever the Maniac is about to appear, and it all makes for one hell of a wacko experience. Actually, if it wasn’t for this piece of music popping up all over the place, I’d swear this was a lot older than 1976 – if not for the effects, then for the fashions which seem more like they’re from the late sixties or early seventies to me.
As you might expect, all this results in some unintentional comedy and an overall campy feel to the film. Which is just as well, because the rest of it is a complete write-off. The morality of the film seems a little skewed, too, and some of the plot doesn’t stand up to close scrutiny. I think the crew probably thought that if you throw enough topless ladies in, you could disguise the film’s shortcomings. This is probably the most “breasty” Hong Kong film I’ve seen, although I’m sure it can’t hold a candle to Cat III films (of which I haven’t seen any, Officer, I swear). The action scenes involving the Maniac aren’t too bad, though, but you can never get past the fact that it’s a man in a rubber suit. The film’s conclusion was more than a tad predictable, too.
Oily Maniac is not so much a B-Movie as a C-Movie, but is entertaining enough in its camp way - and is probably the only place you will ever see a man beaten to death with his own bicycle.
Junk (2000) May 24, 2007
Posted by Cal in : Blogroll, Horror , 2 commentsDirector: Atsushi Muroga Cast: Kaori Shimamura, Shu Ehara, Yuji Kishimoto, Miwa Yanagizawa Territory: Japan
In an old, disused chemical plant sanctioned by a contingent of the US military in Japan, a western doctor is reviving a dead woman using a special concoction called DNX. The woman does indeed return to life, but unfortunately tends to be a bit psychotic and has a taste for human flesh. Meanwhile, on the other side of town, a group of amateur jewel thieves and their getaway driver (Kaori Shimamura) are pulling off a heist that will see them comfortably well off for some time. The robbery is successful, although Akira (Shu Ehara) is disabled after being stabbed violently in the foot. The gang arrive early at the rendezvous with their Yakuza fence and his mob and take the time to explore the factory a little. That’s right, it’s the same disused chemical plant where the experiment took place, and there’s a zombie on the loose! Pretty soon, thanks to some totally irresponsible storage of this DNX stuff on a shelf right next to a row of dead bodies, our heroes are overrun with zombies. Things only get worse when the Yakuza show up – they decided to screw over the thieves and take the loot themselves. However, they foolishly ignore the gang’s insistence that the place is swarming with hostile dead and pretty soon you’ve got a situation where the Yakuza are trying to kill the thieves (and vice versa) while the zombies are happily munching on everyone stupid enough to stand still for more than 30 seconds. Then the military send in a team to try to sort the problem out…
Junk is a low-budget shot-on-video Japanese zombie flick. It has some really cringeworthy English language acting – there are a fair few Americans in the film and they don’t seem to be able to carry a line of dialogue. Another problem is one of the Japanese actors is forced to speak in English and he’s unfortunately pretty unintelligible (thankfully, the subtitles are provided for the English language dialogue too, which is usually something I hate but is a blessing here). It’s also a bit on the unbelievable side (even for a zombie movie) and the inclusion of a super-zombie (Miwa Yanagizawa) isn’t really playing by the rules, in my opinion.
However, the main problem I had was that the original zombie is brought back to life with a syringe of this DNX stuff. We see the doctor carefully insert the needle into her arm and administer the shot. One question: how the *censored* is that going to work? Seriously, did anyone think this through? Even the guy playing the doctor should have said, “erm, actually, Mr Director, circulation is a process that ends at the time of death. I don’t think sticking her with a needle is going to do much good.” Anyway, it all kind of redeems itself later when some of the corpses are splashed with the stuff and come back to life, but that lapse in the laws of basic biological science did make me groan.
Anyway. If all this sounds really negative, there are some positives. Despite how it sounds, a couple of the jewel thieves are actually quite likeable, and you can find yourself rooting for their characters. I liked the idea of pitting the Yakuza against both the jewel theives AND the zombies – so that essentially you’ve got three factions trying to kill or eat (or both) each other. Furthermore, there are times when the zombie tension builds quite effectively. These are the slow-moving, brainless variety of zombie, that only gets its way by sheer weight of numbers – later on, there seem to be hundreds of the buggers! The gore effects are also quite good for the budget, and the zombie feeding scenes are suitably nasty.
If you’re willing to put up with a lot of dodgy acting, some rather implausible (and illogical) plotting, and the rather “cold” feel of a film shot on video, you can do a lot worse than Junk. But be warned that it really is just a bit of low-budget fun and no substitute for the truly great zombie films like Dawn of the Dead.
And in case you’re wondering, I’m now all out of Asian zombie flicks (I’m not watching Bio-Cops again for any price!). Normal service will be resumed shortly.
Bio Zombie (1998) May 20, 2007
Posted by Cal in : Blogroll, Horror, Comedy, 1990s films , 4 commentsDirector: Wilson Yip Cast: Jordan Chan, Sam Lee, Angela Tong, Lai Yiu-Cheung, Emotion Cheung Territory: Hong Kong Production Company: Cameron Entertainment Co
Long before Zack Snyder made the official Dawn of the Dead remake, Wilson Yip (who would later go on to helm the ultra-slick and ultra-stylish SPL) made his own. Sure, it has more laughs than frights, but the basic premise of a bunch of survivors in a mall over-run with the walking dead remains the same.
The twist here is that the survivors want to get out of the mall as it has become the centre of the zombie activity thanks in no small part to our two heroes. Woody Invincible (Jordan Chan) and Crazy Bee (Sam Lee) are two slackers who run a dodgy VCD stall in the mall (having seen the quality of their stock, I think I may have purchased some of their VCDs in the past), while Woody’s would-be girlfriend Rolls (Angela Tong) is a vacuous beautician who strings along “Sushi Boy” (the wonderfully named Emotion Cheung), a well-meaning chef in the Mall’s Japanese restaurant just to get a discount. Rounding out the crew are Woody and Crazy Bee’s scumbag boss Mr Kui (Lai Yiu-Cheung) and his beautiful but downtrodden wife (Tam Suk-Mui). It is a testament to Lai’s skill as an actor that he pulls off such a vile role so well after playing the kindly, gentle “Piggy” in TVB’s Journey to the West! From this essentially unlikeable cast of characters we have what passes for Bio Zombie’s heroes – but it’s best not to pass judgement on them until they show their mettle in a crisis situation.
There’s a plot in here, but for the first forty minutes you’d hardly know it. A biological agent is stored in a bottle of Lucozade (surely a recipe for disaster right from the start!) and is being sold illegally nearby. This agent can turn people into killing machines – albeit very slow, shuffling killing machines with a taste for human flesh. The deal goes horribly wrong when the test case escapes and eats the weapons dealers. A survivor is picked up by the two slackers when they inadvertently knock him over in their car – and is given a drink from the Lucozade bottle to perk him up! The survivor, left for dead in the boot of Woody’s car, goes on a rampage when they reach the mall and thus kicks off the zombie invasion.
There’s some weird stuff in the first half of Bio-Zombie that has nothing whatsoever to do with zombies and has no place in a horror film. The comedy factor is so high early on that you actually forget what’s going to happen, and when it does, it’s quite a shock. The acting is quite remarkable at times, and much higher than you’d expect in a movie like this. The preliminary scenes setting up the heroes and villains pay off big time come the final reel because of all the goofing around earlier, not despite it. It even conjures up a fair bit of tension at times, particularly when the pair are handcuffed in the Security Guards’ office during an attack. The zombie make-up is not terribly complex or groundbreaking, but this doesn’t hamper the fun in any way. The zombies themselves are straight out of Romero’s world, and the same rules apply: only severe head wounds (preferably a headshot with a firearm) will stop them, and anything else is just going to fail.
The Mei-Ah DVD is a bit of a travesty, it has to be said. There is a US version, I believe, that has a very entertaining dub, but that sort of thing goes against the grain for me and I can’t see myself ever watching it. The problem with the Mei-Ah disc is the sound – it’s probably the worst I’ve ever heard on DVD. The picture is no more than adequate, but the subs throw up some strange “Chinglish” on occasions – such as when Woody and Sushi Boy burst into the gents’ toilet to find Crazy Bee in there. When asked what he was doing, he shouts back, “I am stooling!”. There are quite a few nuggets like that in here. The main selling point seems to be the very short alternate ending, but it is rather pointless and seems to have been filmed without serious consideration of actually being used.
Sam Lee would return (as a different character) in Bio Cops – an unnecessary and unsatisfying sequel that should have taken a headshot in the planning stages.