Zombie Fight Club

I'm enjoying my Halloween horror marathon and decided to include Zombie Fight Club. At first, I was impressed-the film seemed like a surprisingly decent zombie movie, packed with action, particularly dynamic and visually impressive martial arts, along with familiar elements from solid zombie stories.

But then came the downhill slide. To summarize, this film is one of the most mindless collages of gore, violence, nudity, sexuality, sexual violence, and outright chauvinism I've ever seen. And there's plenty of all of it. It feels like someone's secret bedroom fantasy put on screen. While zombie films often mix in some of these elements, here they dominate the runtime. Much of it doesn't even make sense, and the enjoyment quickly fades.

On top of that, there isn't even a real story-or rather, the story is all over the place. Characters randomly switch between Chinese and English, sometimes even mid-sentence, for no reason. By the end, I could only remember two characters by name, and one of them was zombified early on. There are no likable characters, and for the first hour I didn't even know who was supposed to be the protagonist.

The film also crams in references to other horror movies-not just zombie films-but many feel totally out of place. For example, who thought it was a good idea to throw the power loader from Aliens (1986) into a zombie flick? And more importantly, who has a power loader sitting in their small condo? Well, I guess the question doesn't matter-it only adds to the film's mindless nature.

There was a clear moment when I thought the film had ended, and I was ready for the credits. But no-there was still half an hour left. The story then shifted so drastically that I had to double-check I was watching the same movie. That final stretch was even more saturated with violence, nudity, and sexual violence, and even less concerned with coherent storytelling. By then, I just felt bad and disgusted.

It's sad, because I love zombie slashers and this one could have had potential. Instead, it squandered it. I don't recommend Zombie Fight Club. It's simply not worth your time.

A building riddled with a menagerie of working girls, criminals and loners find the corridors of their apartment block infested with zombies.

Oh my have things have progressed since Junk Shiryōgari (2000) and Versus (2000) (certainly in the effects department), Zombie Fight Club (2014) is better than the influx of recent DTV walking dead movies globally produced, in contrast to most Asian dead movies its light on humour, tonally it's reminiscent of The Horde (2009), Rammbock/Berlin Dead (2010) mixed with Joe Chien's own twisted incoherent Zombie 108 (2012).

Chien's zombie offering is packed with action, actually wall to wall bloodshed, excellent make-up effects and an abundance of practical and CGI blood which puts some American modest budget zombie films to shame. It's colour palette is dark, accompanied by a pumping soundtrack, it's undeniably fast paced. Oddly it inexplicably interchanges between English and Mandarin and it's a film of unorthodox two halves with no third act.

When it does slowdown it has a fistful of creepy moments but these are few and far between as buxom beauty Jenny played by Jessica Cambensy witnesses her boyfriend, his crew of rappers and strippers come toe to toe with growing army of zombies. After a flash forward a year after the outbreak Jenny has gone all zombie killer sporting a new hair cut and an even tighter costume (yes there's the shameless objectification of women but no more than The Resident Evil franchise tries to gloss over).

What it lacks in plot it makes up for with its kick-ass female and male characters, soldiers and loads of zombie kills, impalement, bullets and action setups. Yes the characters are at times cartoonish and its gratuitous but it's a solid addition to the Asian live action zombie market, if you're in to it.

Went to see this movie with friend because nothing else is on. In a nutshell, the director took the apartment from Dredd, general atmosphere of George Romero movies, some Asian pop-stars, tossed in a blender, and filmed whatever detritus that came out. Fasten your seat belt and prepare for a long ride, because the prologue lasted for a whole hour before the titular zombie fight club starts.

There are some T&A in there, but not enough to justify the ticket price, and not the ones you went in hoping to see (Jessica C for me). My feeling is that the director is familiar with elements from various zombie movies, yet completely missed that zombie movies are always about the human; zombies are forces of nature that creates the survivalist environment which brings out the cruel and selfish tendency within us. Instead we get characters that are just as bland and dumb as the zombies they are fighting. Zombie Battle Royale would be more fitting title for this movie.

The movie has no idea whether it wants to be an action film, body horror, or slap stick comedy. Switching between all three at will. It has all the subtlety of a getaway BMW that is somehow emplaced inside an apartment unit on the top floor, smashing through multiple concrete walls until it's sailing through open air, crashing to the ground with nary a dent. And yes, that scene is in the movie.

Films without plots can be done well given good direction and acting. Well-written films can be good despite bad directors and actors. Zombie Fight Club has no good element in its production.

"So bad it's good" doesn't even fly with this film. The more-American-than-American accents provide the bulk of the humor. The film's focus on the innate evil of humanity (its only constant) oozes away any value a good riffing might redeem it with.

Zombie Fight Club directly takes elements of The Raid and The Walking Dead and removes the elements of 'Redemption'. Instead, the martial arts police are dirty cops and the civilians are plagued by a distinctly East Asian pathology. The crux of Zombie Fight Club is the argument that humankind is innately evil, and, pushed to the limit, will gleefully discard its visage of goodness. Even the two protagonists, who bear a transparent semblance of morality, lack any dignity.

Romero's legacy is dismantled and digitally spit on by Zombie Fight Club. If you want to enjoy a poor zombie movie, stick to films like Redneck Zombies. In the very least, the garage special effects will be more entertaining than Zombie Fight Club's digital massacre.

Zombie Fight Club is not the sort of movie that would win an awards. However, as a fan of campy B movie horror action I enjoyed this quite a bit. Now, there are some flaws for sure and the film is a bit disjointed and falls apart a bit in the second half. But, I digress Zombie Fight Club is a non stop action packed gorefest like Raid Redemption with zombies. As far as that goes this film delivers the blood splattered goods in spades here with a level of carnage that goes past eleven. The people who review and rate this movie on here must not be horror fans or action movie lovers. There are a enough bullets, blood and brutal beatdowns to make the most ardent of action fans wince. The fight choreography is great and Andy On is good as leading man and takes down an army of the undead with guns, sharp and blunt objects as well as using his kung fu skills as well. In Hong Kong cinema this kind of movie is extremely rare and is the 1st movie I have seen like this from there since Bio Zombie. Zombie Fight Club is not as well made as Bio Zombie, but far surpasses it for extreme violence, gore and sheer action. The best/worse actor in Hong Kong Michael Wong appears and is actually decent in this. To see what I'm talking about, check out his awkward performance in Beast Cops. Also, there is a Taiwanese rapper called Mc Hotdog(I plan on looking him up later) and lots of gorgeous skantly clad Chinese woman to take this already insane movie over the top. I thought this is good for what it is and for this type of craziness, I'm all in.