Bio Zombie is the story of two friends, Crazy Bee (Sam Lee, Gen X Cops) and Woody Invincible (Jordan Chan). They run a bootleg VCD shop in a small mall somewhere in Hong Kong. They’re a pair of obnoxious slackers whose big mouths frequently get them into trouble. They screw around with other people who work there including two girls, Jelly and Rolls, who work at a beauty parlour. They also encounter the slimy owner of a mobile phone store, and his very put-upon wife. They’re sent by their boss to pick up his Jaguar from the garage where it was in for a servicing, but on the way home they run into a spot of bother. A meeting between some mysterious men is taking place, something is being kept chained to the inside of a large box, and a briefcase containing a mysterious fluid in a bottle of Lucozade is to be exchanged. Before the exchange can take place, whatever it is in the box escapes and eviscerates one man before attacking the others. One man escapes with the briefcase, but runs straight into the path of the speeding Woody Invincible and Crazy Bee! They hastily check on the man’s condition, and mistaking his murmuring “Lucozade” to mean he wants a drink from the bottle of mysterious liquid, they pour some down his throat and he promptly dies. In a panic, they bundle the guy into the trunk of he car and return to their mall car park. Taking a look in the trunk reveals a problem later however, the body has gone and left just a load of foul-smelling gunk and a mobile phone behind. When this happens they do what comes naturally, forget all about it and sell the mobile phone!

Woody and Crazy Bee meet up with Rolls and Jelly (after they ROB ROLLS IN THE TOILET – more on this later) and offer to buy them dinner at the mall’s sushi place, mocking poor the Sushi Boy Loi who works there, who himself has a big crush on Rolls. After getting suitably inebriated on sake and Rolls and Woody having an drunken make-out session, things start to go pear shaped. A security guard is dragged underneath the Jag in the carpark and gets his insides forcibly removed by the zombie that used to be in the trunk, then he wanders inside to look for more victims, as they tend to do. Poor Loi soon falls prey to the lumbering undead, and as the number of zombies increases, Woody, Crazy, Rolls, Jelly, and the slimy phone store guy and his wife are locked inside and have to take up arms to defend themselves against the zombie menace.

Its safe to say that this movie is something of an homage to George Romero’s Dawn of the Dead, and though I’m afraid I have to say I’m not a massive fan of that particular film, I have a bit of a soft spot for this one. That’s not to say it isn’t without fault though, no sir. My prime criticism is that this movie almost entirely lacks any likable characters. Woody Invincible and to a lesser extent Crazy Bee are so obnoxious that they often go beyond being entertaining and become just unpleasant. When they don’t have enough money to pay their boss, they follow Rolls into the bathroom and mug her, before Woody ends up playing tonsil hockey with her a mere ten minutes later. Now call me old fashioned, and I guess these are the anti-heroes we’re supposed to root for, but especially in Woody’s case you really don’t care if they make it or not. At least Crazy Bee has some endearingly goofy personality traits, Woody is just a prize bastard. It doesn’t end there, even the main love interest herself, Rolls, just isn’t terribly nice! Sure she’s kinda cute, but she isn’t likable either! Maybe this is more realistic, but it harms the suspense of the movie when you’re not made to care about the characters and want them to survive. The other thing that bugged me was the whole style of the movie changes once the zombies pop up. The first 35 minutes or so is a goofy, amusing tale about these two slackers, but when the zombies turn up it goes dead serious. I’m not a fan of jarring changes of pace if its not done logically, or if the film was perfectly fine the way it was, that’s probably why I don’t care for From Dusk ‘Till Dawn. For me, Bio Zombie more or less loses what made it original when it goes ultra-serious on us, and it ends up being a lot less fun as it just kinda degenerates into a Dawn of the Dead tribute.

Its not ALL bad though! First off, if I can object to the characters so strongly, that must suggest that they do a decent job in there roles, or it wouldn’t bother me right? Both Jordan Chan and Sam Lee (who I’m really getting to like from what I’ve seen him in) are both pretty good actors, even though they’re not exactly working with dynamite original material. Another thing that stands out is that apart from all the Romero-worship, there are some nicely original touches. Emotion Cheung’s (love that name!) Loi the sushi boy turns in a great performance as a zombie with a heart, trying to protect Rolls from the other zombies, aw. There are also some moments of entertaining dialogue early on which exhibit the goofy humour this movie really needed more of. All in all this is a good effort, and while it wears its influences rather too proudly, it is not lacking in some style and originality of its own, and is still better than the insipid crap Hollywood keeps forcing on us.