In Hong Kong’s kung-fu-free horror comedy Bio Zombie, the utterly despicable Woody Invincible (Jordan Chan, 2005’s Initial D) and Crazy Bee (Sam Lee, Man of Tai Chi) spend their days pirating new movies in the theater and then selling copies through their VCD shop in the mall.
While out running an errand, these young pals run over a guy clutching a soda bottle that’s filled with a toxic agent. (Nope, not Mountain Dew, but good guess.) Through a misunderstanding, they feed it to him, transforming the poor guy into a blue-faced, crusty-cheeked zombie. Before you know it, our “heroes” are trapped in the mall overnight with a whole mess of the undead and have to behead their way out.
The misadventures of Woody Invincible and Crazy Bee basically represent a low-rent, lowbrow version of George A. Romero’s classic Dawn of the Dead, but stripped of any notes of seriousness, save for its grim denouement. Often, Bio Zombie gives way to video-game flourishes, when director Wilson Yip (the acclaimed Ip Man trilogy) pauses the action just long enough to give the viewer “stats” on each surviving human.
If I have a complaint with Bio Zombie beyond the sheer unlikability of the two leads, it’s that the film simply is not wild enough. Compared to even some of America’s Romero rip-offs, this one is tame in both the gore and imagination departments — surprising coming from a country whose genre cinema seems to redefine “over the top” every chance it gets. —Rod Lott