Bio Zombie (1998)

Plot Outline: A soft drink tainted with bio chemicals has the power to turn people into flesh-eating zombies. When a shady deal between terrorists goes wrong, one of the men manages to escape with the sample soft drink. However he's run over by two losers who work in a VCD store at the local mall, Woody and Bee. They stumble upon the soft drink, give it to the dying man and put him in their car boot to take back to the mall. When they get there, the zombie breaks loose and begins biting and eating it's way through the shoppers and employees. Woody, Bee and a whole host of other characters have to find a way out before it's too late!

The Review: I'd just like to kick this review off by saying Bio Zombie is one of the best damned zombie flicks I've ever seen. It's straight into my top 5 and is such a great ride of laughs and thrills, I'm definitely recommending this to everyone I know. There's not too many zombie films that can say they're both entertaining and at the same time maintaining the traditions of the zombie film - horrible make-up and gore! All of the Hong Kong horror films I've seen over the years have successfully fused horror and comedy together with the likes of Mr Vampire and Encounters of the Spooky Kind springing to mind straight away and Bio Zombie is the latest in a long line to do so. There's a lengthy set-up which introduces us to the main characters and how the zombies have come to be. Jordan Chan and Sam Lee are a great duo who really make this film their own. Their characters start off as rogues, petty criminals with louder intentions that they actually follow through with. Maybe it's the dubbing that does the job, but they have some truly comic dialogue and some of the delivery is off the charts funny. One of them sounds like Keanu Reeves! You wonder whether or not you're supposed to sympathise with these guys with some of the things they do and say to other people but they're just so likeable it's hard not to. After around 40 minutes of preparation, the zombies finally kick in and all horror hell breaks loose with arms being ripped out, throats being sliced open and heads being lopped off. It's nothing remotely in the leagues of Romero or Fulci but still enough to churn the stomach at times. The zombie make-up doesn't fare as well though, with some of the zombies looking extraordinarily pathetic as if they purchased zombie kits from the local fancy dress. But there's plenty of them including a football team and security guards all hungry for flesh. Also worth mentioning is the ending which is a real shocker. I'm not going to spoil it but needless to say it doesn't follow the usual rules of the genre.

Final Verdict: Bio Zombie is a riot. It's funny, fast-paced and has more than enough going for it to please zombie fans or Asian horror fans extremely well.

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