Bio-Zombie
Director: Wilson Yip
Year: 1998
Rating: 7.5
When I saw this
years ago, I wasn't sure whether to categorize this under comedy or horror
or create a new category called "What were they thinking". But as it turns
out this was just ahead of its time in the zombie genre mixing up humor,
zombies, gore and pathos. This was a precursor to films like 28 Days Later,
Shaun of the Dead, Zombieland and even with a touch of Train to Busan about
its ending. Years ago I didn't have much good to say about this film. I must
have been in a bad mood or my taste in films has changed a lot in 20 years.
Seeing this again, I think the director Wilson Yip does a terrific job of
melding all these elements together and slowly bringing it to a fevered chaotic
boil. And he does it on a miniscule budget. A few actors, an empty mall to
rent late at night and some make-up. That is all they need to create this
isolated sense of foreboding punctuated with clever humor and courage. And
despondency.
Nearly all the action takes place in a
small mall - very similar to Sino Centre (without the thronging crowds though
- no additional expense on this film) on Nathan Road - that is filled with
cubicle sized stores selling pirated vcds, video games and pictures of HK
pop celebrities etc. A gathering place for teenagers after school when the
stores start lifting up their iron gates. There is a certain comradery among
the workers there and the regular customers who are there to buy the latest
movies or music. Sounds from the various stores rebound throughout. I always
enjoyed walking around these places looking for dvds or film souvenirs on
my visits to Hong Kong. A lot of it though has disappeared over the past
ten years.
The film has a group of young popular actors
who brighten things up and give it a shot of energy and charm. Two clerks
of a pirated vcd store (Jordan Chan and Sam Lee), along with a couple of
female beauticians (the irresistible Angela Tong as Rolls and Bonnie Lai
as Jelly), Emotion Cheung as a sushi chef with a crush on Rolls that plays
out unexpectedly and a bickering husband/wife store owner (Wayne Lai and
Tam Suk-mui) all get trapped in the mall after closing and discover that
there are Zombies in there with them. It creeps up on you slowly, a little
goofy, more comedy than horror for a long while but the mood darkens as the
zombies seem to multiply. Jordan and Sam are the two main characters – fast
talking, confrontational bluster, insult throwing, argumentative in your
face slackers with few ambitions in life besides flirting with the girls.
Close to a Hong Kong Beavis and Butt-Head. But friends as it turns out deadly
loyal to one another.They run over a man who staggers into the road and give
him a drink he has to revive him. The drink it turns out is a bio-chemical
formula that turns us into zombies. They stuff him in the trunk and bring
him to the mall. Maybe not the best idea.
Like most Zombies, when they bite someone,
the victim turns into a white faced stiff walking flesh eater. At some point
our characters begin to realize that the zombies are real, that the zombies
are hungry and that they are locked into the mall with no way to get out
and have to survive somehow. It turns into a constant mad chase to get away,
to find a way out, to save each other and kill the zombies. A little Abbot
and Costello Meet the Zombies but no one in those movies died. By the end
we are invested in these characters enough to feel for them as some are zombieized.
Within this, human dynamics play out – Jordan and Sam turn out to have more
guts and savvy than expected, Wayne Lai less, the women join in on the attack
on the zombies but there are so many of them. By the end the humor has long
been left on the floor. This film has near cult status now. Wilson Yip was
at the beginning of his career when he was making a few low-budget films
- 1:00 am, Mongkok Story, Midnight Zone but he was on his way to a great
career. Right after this film he made the terrific Bullets Over Summer, then
Juliet in Love and is now a top action film director with SPL, Flash Point
and four in the Ip Man series.
