Sun faa sau si (1998)

Director:

Wilson Yip

Writers:

Matt Chow (writer)
Siu Man Sing (writer)

Release Date:

11 June 1998 (Hong Kong)

Genre:

Comedy | Horror

Plot:

Hong Kong's answer to George Romero's Dawn Of The Dead. A soft drink tainted with bio-chemicals has the power to turn people into flesh-eating zombies...

Plot Keywords:

Mall | Soft Drink | Chase | Zombie | Crush

Cast

Jordan Chan	...	Woody Invincible (as Siu Chun Chan)
Emotion Cheung	...	Loi (as Kam Ching Cheung)
Sam Lee	...	Crazy Bee (as Chan Sum Lee)
Yiu-Cheung Lai	...	Kui (as Yiu Cheung Lai)
Angela Tong Ying-Ying	...	Rolls (as Angela Tong)
Suk Yin Lai	...	Jelly
Tat-Wah Lok	...	Military Officer (as Tat Wah Lok)
Frankie Chan	...	Ox
Tak Chi Tam	...	Policeman #3001
Chi Chuen Chan	...	Policeman #9466
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Bob Bobson	...	VCD Nerd (voice: English version)
Pou-Soi Cheang	...	Automobile Repairman
Francis Cherry	...	Man A (voice: English version)
Siu-Lung Ching	...	Chan Kam-Shing
Matt Chow	...	Shing's Assistant
Dorothy Elias-Fahn	...	Mrs. Kui / TV Announcer / Cindy (voice: English version) (as Dorothy Melendrez)
Richard Epcar	...	Ox (voice: English version) (as Richard George)
Tara Jayne	...	Jelly (voice: English version)
Steve Kramer	...	Yung / Zombies (voice: English version)
Wendee Lee	...	Rolls (voice: English version)
Chi On Leung	...	Automobile Repairman
Dave Mallow	...	Loi (voice: English version)
Matt K. Miller	...	Kui (voice: English version)
Tony Pope	...	Boss / Sushi Chef / Movie Actor 1 / Zombies (voice: English version) (as Anthony Mozdy)
Derek Stephen Prince	...	Crazy Bee (voice: English version) (as David Umansky)
Donovan Ross	...	Cop A (voice: English version)
Doug Stone	...	Cop B / Sai Fai / Movie Actor 2 / Zombies (voice: English version)
Terrence Stone	...	Garage Mechanic / Iraqi / Motorcycle Cop / Zombies (voice: English version)
Suk Mooi Tam	...	Mrs. Kui
Kirk Thornton	...	Woody Invincible (voice: English version) (as Sparky Thornton)

Also Known As:

Bio-Zombie (Hong Kong: English title)
Sang dut sau shut (Hong Kong: Cantonese title) (Hakka dialect title)
Sheng hua shou shi (Hong Kong: Mandarin title)

Runtime:

94 min

Country:

Hong Kong

Language:

Cantonese

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Hong Kong:IIB | Canada:13+ (Quebec) | Canada:R (Ontario)

Company:

Brilliant Idea Group (BIG)

Movie Connections:

References Titanic (1997)

Funny, fast paced, but needed more gore

When you watch Bio Zombie its pretty damn obvious that Asian horror filmmakers are just as infatuated with Romeros zombie creations as we are.

The movie is about these two slacker looser types who work in a video store down at the local mall. While they are driving their bosses car from the auto shop they hit a strange man with a suit case containing a liquid that when ingested will turn anyone into raving flesh eating zombies. They mistake the liquid for a soda bottle, some one drinks it and the zombie fun begins.

The first half is just getting to know the characters so the actual zombie action doesn't begin right away, but the funny dialog and characters will keep you interested until the undead starts to roll in. The first half kind of feels like Mallrats with all these crazy young characters who's life depends on being in the mall for 95% of their lives. I mean we get to losers as leads (kind of like Jay and Silent Bob) we get the asshole who treats his girl like crap (like Ben Afflecks character in Mallrats), lets face it the influences from Kevin Smiths films on this one are also blatantly obvious.

The second half of the movie is when the zombies start to roll in. This half of the movie reminded me a lot of Romeros Dawn of the Dead and hey there's no denying that Romeros film was an obvious inspiration for this here flick. You know, zombies in a mall, people running and hiding from them in the stores. You know the drill.

What disappointed me a bit about this movie was its obvious lack of gore! I was expecting a blood bath, but no, surprisingly the movie showed a lot of restraint in this department. Could it have been because of its small budget? Or where there other reasons for the lack of the red stuff? I don't know, but after a while I was feeling a bit cheated. Not only that but the actual zombie make up wasn't all that great, sometimes you could see that it was just appliances glued to the actors faces...and that really really sucked for me. In fact its the worst part of the film. Hey! If your making a zombie movie, at least make the undead look cool! But the movie manages to award us with something else instead. We might not have cool looking zombies or buckets of blood and guts (the camera actually shys away from showing us the blood and guts on many occasions) but we get great characters! Woody and Bee are funny guys, they are lovable slackers and you'll be entertained by their funny situations and hilarious dialog.

The direction was inventive as well, there were some really cool shots in there that caught me off guard. Like for example, there were some visual references to the house of the Dead video game! Now before you go saying something about how Uwe Boll did it and it sucked (and you'd be right!), this director actually did it right! You have to see it to understand but it was very original. There were many other cool shots in the film that showed the director was creative with his shots.

All in all a fun zombie movie with great characters, but not enough gore. Think of it as Mallrats meats Dawn of the Dead and you'll have an idea of what your going to see! Rating: 3 out 5