Kung Fu Zombie
A criminal comes to town in order to kill Billy Chong over a past dispute. But instead of getting his own hands dirty, he hires a Taoist wizard to animate some zombies to do the job for him. The plan goes horribly wrong, and the criminal ends up getting killed in his own trap. This antagonises the villain's spirit and he forces .. Read more
| Starring | Shum Yan Chi, Billy Chong, To Chong Yeong-mun Kwon |
|---|---|
| Director | I-Jung Hua |
| Genres | Action/Adventure |
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Kung Fu Zombie
A criminal comes to town in order to kill Billy Chong over a past dispute. But instead of getting his own hands dirty, he hires a Taoist wizard to animate some zombies to do the job for him. The plan goes horribly wrong, and the criminal ends up getting killed in his own trap. This antagonises the villain's spirit and he forces the priest to reincarnate him - only they can't find a suitable body. Meanwhile, an undead fiend of sorts, comes to town to kill Billy's father over some other past dispute. Billy manages to kill the attacker, however, there is now a body suitable for the criminal and this time Billy's going to have to face him...
| Starring | Shum Yan Chi, Billy Chong, To Chong Yeong-mun Kwon |
|---|---|
| Director | I-Jung Hua |
| Studio | SOULBLADE |
| Run time | DVD: 1 hr 20 mins |
| Certificate | |
| Genres | Action/Adventure |
| Released | DVD: 14 May 2007 |
| Format | DVD |
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Most helpful member's review
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3 out of 3 people found this review helpful
Zany fun with lots of style!
This is a good example of low budget cinema (and Hong Kong cinema) in that creativity seems to abound from the fact that the film is low budget (take for instance a quote from Halliwell's Film Guide which said The Big Boss was possibly Bruce Lee's best film - which is probably because the low budget nature of the film gave Lee more presence and relied more on his acting ability).
Kung Fu Zombie was a big hit in the year of 1980 and whilst the film may seem little more than a cash-in on Sammo Hung's Close Encounters Of The Spooky Kind and Lau Kar Leung's The Spiritual Boxer, the film has a very strong sense of style (the editing in particular is very clever and so cutting-edge, almost avant-guard filmmaking - especially during a scene in which the 'zombie' of the title {really a vampire} kills off a person near the end of the film in a frenziedly shot manner which surely must have inspired Sam Raimi when he was making his Evil Dead films, something which kungfucinema.com owner Mark Pollard, himself, had stated in his review).
The fight scenes are very different from ones during the era of which this film was made in, they're extremely fast-paced but not done to the detriment of the enjoyment factor (like Ching Siu Tung's fight scenes). But the most fitting description is that the fight scenes are Corey Yuen Kwai on acid whilst watching Charlie Chaplin.
There's a fight scene with Billy Chong in the middle of the film which seems to come from nowhere but I don't think it came from any other movie so maybe a few scenes were left on the cutting room floor which would have explained the appearance of such an encounter, but it certainly came from this movie.
Like I said before, this film must surely have influenced Sam Raimi i.e. the combination of mad-cap humour interlaced with moments of extreme violence and inanimate objects that laugh (think Evil Dead 2; in this movie there's an invisible person wearing a hat and the way he laughs {i.e. the motion of the hat} is reminiscent of the way the objects laughed in Evil Dead 2).
In fact, to digress from this movie for a moment, there are ideas present in Close Encounters Of The Spooky Kind which pop up in Sam Raimi's Evil Dead films i.e. the creepy mirror reflection, the make-up of one particular creature and the possessed hand.
Of course, in Sammo's movie there's a scene similar to Conan The Barbarian which involves the protagonist's body being painted in order to counteract the spirits - so maybe there was no plagiarism there but just two people inventing the wheel.
Though to be honest, the special effects in this film are very poor and make the Evil Dead films seem like the creation of George Lucas and Jim Henson. Also, strangely though funnily enough, whenever the villain shows up the James Bond theme plays!!!
Nevertheless, Kung Fu Zombie is a cult-classic with black humour which makes other Kung Fu movies seem like kids flicks by comparison! -
Most recent members' review
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Dracula or zombies
I couldn't tell if the bad guys were a Dracula or zombies, but if you want to have a laugh then rent it.
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Kung Fu Zombie
A criminal comes to town in order to kill Billy Chong over a past dispute. But instead of getting his own hands dirty, he hires a Taoist wizard to animate some zombies to do the job for him. The plan goes horribly wrong, and the criminal ends up getting killed in his own trap. This antagonises the ...
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