Bio-Zombie

With the two main characters characters named Woody Invincible and Crazy Bee, and the love interest named Rolls... how can a movie fail?

A lovelorn zombie sushi chef, a neglectful husband and a spiteful, yet faithful wife, two bumbling thieves, and a couple of beauty salon workers, Bio Zombie's cast is full of great characters; all that are played convincingly. Combined with a great script, Bio Zombie provides ample entertainment.

A hilarious spin on an age-old premise, Bio-Zombie is a comedy disguised as a zombie movie. Amazing dialog, impractical events, and great lead actors, this movie definitely delivered. The perfect bad horror movie.

7/10

Having recently gotten into the asian horror genre, I finally had a chance to watch this movie. Bio Zombie is original in the way it blends comedy, horror, action.....and it works!!

I really liked the transition the film. When you meet Woody Invincible and Crazy Bee, they are far from winning any moral awards. This provides so much humor especially their "tough" guy personas, so you naturally take a liking to the two. Follow that with crossing paths with a couple of gals including hottie babe Rolls, and you have really funny moments!! The way director Wilson Yip progresses the story, you find out about the characters and then he adds the deadly biochemical plot which takes the film to another level. It's not a horror film having you shut your eyes or watch through the cracks of your fingers, but you find yourself drawn into the story following the plight of our unlikely heroes.

VERY good chemistry between the cast. Jordan Lee (Woody) and Sam Lee (Bee) really seem like two buddies who get into all sort of trouble. Their personalities, facial expressions, mannerisms are all assets to their respective characters. Angela Tong Ying-Ying (Rolls) is good as well and flaunts her sex appeal very well! The bathroom scenes with her and Woody are hilarious! Even the Sushi guy plays a vital part!

Credit goes to Yip for giving a shopping mall a very unique and creepy look due to great cinematography. As more and more zombies appear, the twist from comedic entertainment shifts to "struggle to survive" entertainment. The great thing is this film doesn't take itself too seriously and it looks like they had a lot of fun shooting this film. Trust me, you'll have fun seeing it too.

I sat down to watch "Sang faa sau see" (aka "Bio-Zombie") again in 2021, and that makes it the third time that I have seen it.

While "Bio-Zombie" is not your average zombie movie, there is something oddly and profoundly entertaining about it. Perhaps it is the fact that this is a horror comedy that involves zombies and it is mixed up with that archetypical vibe that Hong Kong movies had in the late 1990s. Whatever it is, it definitely works.

Sure, if you sit down to watch the 1998 "Bio-Zombie" with the hopes of being in for a serious and gory zombie movie, then you will be sorely disappointed. Indeed, because "Bio-Zombie" from writers Matt Chow, Man Sing So and Wilson Yip is a light hearted horror comedy that is sort of akin to "Shaun of the Dead" in some aspects, but actually managing to be very much different at the same time. Yeah, I know that "Shaun of the Dead" wasn't out before 6 years after this one, but they fall within the same category.

The zombie make-up and prosthetics in "Bio-Zombie" are low budget, very, very low budget. It looks unbelievably fake, and it doesn't even feel like the movie makers were even bothering to make it look realistic. But it somehow adds to the charm of the movie, especially since the make-up and special effects are so low key and low practical that is borders on being hilarious.

What makes "Bio-Zombie" work out great is the two lead performers, whom are Jordan Chan and Sam Lee. These two put on very enjoyable and memorable performances in this horror comedy, and they definitely were so well-casted for this particular movie from director Wilson Yip.

I suppose the fact that "Bio-Zombie" takes place inside an archetypical mall, as those you'd find all over Hong Kong, but very much archetypical for Mong Kok, then there is a nod towards George A. Romero's "Dawn of the Dead" here.

If you enjoy the Hong Kong cinema, and if you enjoy horror comedies or zombie movies, then you most certainly should give "Bio-Zombie" a watch, provided you have the opportunity.

With having seen the movie three times, I can say that this is still a movie that proves entertaining and enjoyable after 23 years. My rating of "Bio-Zombie" lands on a six out of ten stars.

This movie is great fun! I read a comment that said it was like mallrats with zombies, which is exactly what i thought while watching. The two main characters Bee (Sam Lee - who is on his usually funny form) and Jordan Chan's Invincible, while being both entertaining, offensive and lacking morals (they don't worry about mugging people, running people over or generally bullying people) do show some redeeming qualities towards the end (Bee -"I don't want to be a zombie, i'd rather die" what a line!). OK so the zombie (sub)plot does take a while to get in place, but the comedy does provide entertainment up until the zombies all start shuffling in. The pacing is great, with scenes of tension (the handcuff key in mouth scene)and cheesy emotion (The Sushi zombie giving a present to that girl) pushing along the narrative and character development to a good standard. Before watching it i was expecting a gore-fest, but gore fans will be disappointed, scenes of zombie-culling are quite brief and restrained, but fans of comedy-horror or zombie films should enjoy. To be honest the film does play as a bit of a spoof with moments of clichéd and cheesy emotion and the whole computer game idea towards the end. Although the ending does shaft the comedy element for emotion (although i think its played for laughs) and the ending is a bit of shock, it is overall an enjoyable experience and if you do enjoy this check out Peter Jackson's Braindead!

Should this movie be described as a Hong Kong take on Dawn of the Dead? No. Return of the Living Dead? No, certainly not. Mallrats with zombies? Sounds better.

The point of this movie is not to provide stark raving terror, deep social commentary, or five gallons of blood per second. This movie is fun. Follow the lives of a pair of small-time punks running a VCD shop, the likable Crazy Bee and the incredibly named Woody Invincible, as they try to get their boss's car and end up accidentally unleashing a zombie plague. Oops. But even before the first zombie shows up, the duo has gotten into some amusing scrapes and got out of them with bluster that for once is not unlikable. They may be jerks, but at least their the kind of jerks you can see yourself hanging out with.

When the zombies show up, the movie stays focused on Woody and Bee. It seems so wrong to say that this movie is character driven, but it is. Not it a dramatic sense, but in the sense that the characters and not the zombies are the main focus of the movie. That surprisingly doesn't hurt the film, as the interactions are definetly between our heroic duo and the zombies are generally amusing.

But the movie knows when to get serious. The last ten minutes or so switch from humor to seriousness (save one speech from Bee) suddenly and yet without missing a step. The last ten minutes seem to come from a "real" zombie movie and are filled with emotion and pathos. It's kind of startling, but it also fits.

All in all, I definetly recommend this movie. It is one of my favorites. Just go in expecting humor. Heck, it's best to go into the movie not knowing anything about it.