Running a disused DVD rental store, the owner and his daughter try to reconnect after years of being apart, which is soon interrupted by a chemical spill that reanimated the spirit of a malevolent soldier killed at the location years ago, and they must stop him from spreading a zombie virus in the city.
Overall, this one was quite the impressive film. Among its better attributes is the strong storyline present here that incorporates several strong elements together and gives this one a fun grounding point. The use of Taoist teachings to explain the backstory haunting of the mall's location as the site of a bomb raid during the war and the spirits of those who died there being in disharmony that could threaten the living is all brought together finely. The idea of appeasing their spirits and promoting harmony in their world and ours is a great way to bridge the gap to their eventual release later on. With a secondary storyline involving the store owner trying to do what he can to keep it afloat while raising his daughter, who's just returned home to reconnect, this comes about during the first signs of supernatural activity present don't help their struggling relationship. By providing a great central, emotionally-charged relationship at the core of a spirited zombie feature, the setup has a lot to like about it. With that established, the film makes great use of its setup to unleash plenty of spirited action scenes. Establishing the cause of the outbreak to be the gas canisters buried with the soldiers in the bombing raids during WWII, the gradual build-up to the zombies being released on the trapped workers makes for a solid time here. With early hints involving complaints of power outages, unnatural smells emanating from the area, and sightings of the gas seeping out of the walls, all paint a great picture about the danger they're in, but they can't recognize it. As the situation grows more desperate and the threat becomes more obvious, the attacks are increased in severity and intensity as more staff members are swarmed and turned into the creatures that tie back to the Taoist beliefs in their creation. Figuring out the cause of their unrest and how they've come back to life that ties directory into those traditional beliefs, it allows for a generally intriguing means of getting the zombie curse unleashed. As a result, this has quite a lot of fun encounters. The early swarming scenes offering the zombies taking out the curious personnel trying to investigate what's going on in the mall or the different means of sneaking around to take out others have some great moments running through the stores and hallways taking out victims. The grotesque appearance of the zombies, featuring spores emanating from their faces that signal the original burial method of the soldier who started the curse, gives them a distinct appearance that lends itself well to the tone of the film. Capable of spraying an odor on their target that incapacitates them as well as aids in the spread of the infection, the battle tactic here doesn't devolve around the traditional methods required to stop zombies. Rather, the Taoist means of combat and appeasing spirits by wrapping them in red string and attaching printed parchments to their forehead so they can reverse everything keeps it all intriguing and energetic throughout. These manage to provide quite a lot of likable factors within here, although there are several slight issues holding this down. The main drawback is a decidedly lackluster finale that tends to opt for a more spiritual touch than anything. As we've already gotten the relationship dynamics by this point, the finale, focusing on letting her bring the skills she's learned so far to save the day, should be more of a triumphant angle. Instead, it's played more for a heroic loss with the sacrifices taking place to accomplish everything, draining the fervent energy and urgency that was in store before then. The mystical energy and rituals used to downplay the zombie threat from a physical one into a spiritual force, which is a rather underwhelming tone to take for these kinds of films, taking out the fear of the creatures for such a bizarre choice. As well, there's also the series of obvious and quite lackluster CGI used for the creature effects, which are mainly used on the dangling tentacle-like spores wiggling around the face that stand out here. These all bring the film down somewhat.
Rated Unrated/R: Graphic Violence and Language.
