Bio Zombie

I've said over and over again, that I'm really tired of U.S. remakes of J-Horror movies, but it never occurred to me that Asian cinema was also taking our ideas and adapting them to their culture and society. I don't know why that thought never came to me, I'm just a little bit thick, I suppose. But, it hit me hard and fast when I sat through the Chinese movie, Bio Zombie!



Bio Zombie is not really a rip-off, but more of a tribute to the grand-daddy of all the gross out zombie movies, Dawn Of The Dead, here's the story: Woody and Crazy Bee are just a couple of lovable loser who work in the mall selling bootleg VCDs (I guess it's not illegal in China!), they do the usual things, harass the annoying cell phone salesman, pick on the mall geek and hit on the hot chicks at the manicure salon. Everything seems to be normal, until, as they're picking up their bosses car, they hit a man with a briefcase on the road. And this isn't just any man, this is a man who's just left a secret military meeting with a biological weapon that turns people into raving zombie monsters. And, in a lucky twist, the bio-agent is being transported in what looks like a sports drink bottle. Well, since Woody and Bee don't want to get into trouble, they throw the guy into their trunk and head back to the mall, but not before giving him a refreshing drink of the sports drink...do you see what's coming?

Well, after the newly zombified man comes back from the dead and escapes the trunk of the car, he sets about roaming around creating new zombies until the mall is overrun, and so, it's up to Woody, Bee, the cell phone salesman and his wife and the girls at the manicure salon to escape and get the word to the public that zombies are attacking!

Veering wildly between horror and comedy, Bio Zombie is a pretty confusing, if charming, movie. The gore isn't really front and center as it might be in other horror movies, in fact, when an arm is ripped from it's socket it's barely shown on screen, it's just not the point of the movie. The center of the story is really Woody, who goes from loser and their to hero through the course of the movie. It's ends up being a love story between Woody and the manicure girl, Rolls and, in the end, when Rolls drinks the bio-agent and Woody, after thinking about it, drinks too, you're not sure if he's just given up totally or if he just doesn't want to live without Rolls.

I'm giving Bio Zombie three and a half out of four cigars,

because even as a zombie movie, Bio Zombie moves a little slowly, and, even after the zombies have 'taken over' the mall, there just doesn't seem to be that many of them and, because the gore is really played down, the zombie threat just isn't there. If you enjoy a good zombie movie, then this probably isn't for you, even though it's a fairly fun movie, it's not what most of us will be expecting from any movie with 'zombie' in the title. So, until next time, when I'll be looking at more movies that you've probably never heard of...let alone wanted to...remember that the best movies (even worldwide) are bad movies!