Bio Zombie

Bio Zombie aka Sun faa sau si (1998)

  • Wide Release
  • Director: Wilson Yip
  • Written by: Matt Chow, Siu Man Sing , Wilson Yip
  • Running Time: 94 minutes
  • Language: Japanese
  • MPAA Rating: R - Restricted
  • Cast: Jordan Chan, Emotion Cheung, Sam Lee, Yiu-Cheung Lai, Angela Tong Ying-Ying, Suk Yin Lai, Tat-Wah Lok, Frankie Chan

Guess what? Yeap, you guessed it, more Asian Zombies.
This movie goes to show that if you want to know what the trend will be in Hollywood a few years from now, watch some Asian movies. This one came out more than five years before SHAUN OF THE DEAD.

In my humble opinion, the Asian Movie Industry makes exemplary gore/sex/horror flicks, but they also make great comedies. And this flick is a combination of the two. It's a rather light hearted zombie flick along the lines of RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD and the aformentioned SHAUN OF THE DEAD; only as perhaps an ode to the classic 'Dawn of the Dead', it takes place in a shopping mall.

It starts out rather like any comedy, with our two main characters, being Woody Invincible and Crazy Bee, working in a mall video store, goofing off, flirting with girls and pissing off the security guard.

Time is spent introducing the characters before the horror/zombie elements are introduced to the story, which may make the first part of the movie slow moving to the Zombie Gore fans (but it is entertaining and funny), but, trust me, once the Zombies make the scene it picks right up. The zombies come from your typical bio-chemical virus unwitting loosed upon the world type thing and the zombie effects do look pretty good. Once this one gets going, it is more 'Resident Evil' than even 'Resident Evil' was. Seriously, I guess it's supposed to be humorous (i thought it was), but these icons appear on the screen like in a video game saying things like 'reload'.

My copy is a VHS I got way back when and is subtitled, but now the new DVD release has the option of watching it subtitled or there is a dubbed English audio track. Myself, I usually prefer subtitles because sometimes dubbing just doesn't do justice to the actors actually acting and often come off as humorus. But then this IS a comedy, so it might actually add to the funniness.

Maybe this is no blood-bath like say a Fulci flick, but it does have gore. And maybe you don't find Asian slapstick as funny as I do (hell I think Chris Rock, or is that Chris Tucker, is the most unfunny person I've ever seen, but others seem to find him hilarious), but it's funnier than any sitcom I've ever seen. So , if you are an Asian film fan or are looking for some humor in your Zombie flick in the tradition of SHAUN OF THE DEAD or RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD this one is worth a check. Here is a trailer with English dubbing (just in case all my illiterate friends are reading this).