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Bio Zombie
[Blu-ray]
Blu-ray ALL - America - Vinegar Syndrome Review written by and copyright: Eric Cotenas (24th March 2023). |
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The Film
 Woody Invincible (Throw Down's Jordan Chan) and Zom-Bee (Made in Hong Kong's Sam Lee) run a DVD shop at a rundown shopping mall, making money on the side selling VCDs of pirated theatrical movies and running errands for electronics store owner/minor gangster Brother Kui (Gen-X Cops' Wayne Lai Yiu-Cheung). When Brother Kui sends them to retrieve his Jaguar back from the mechanic, the pair accidentally run down a man who runs into the road. Little do they know that he is the only survivor of a massacre involving the flesh-craving victims of a bioweapon that he is now carrying in a bottle of Lucozade that they help the wounded man injest before throwing him in the trunk as they head back tot he mall in order to raise some quick money to pay for the new damage they have done to Brother Kui's car. They sell Brother Kui's wife (Fist of Legend's Tam Suk-Mui) the "dead" man's phone and mug beautician Jelly (Bonnie Lai Suk-Yin) but still come up short. Upon returning to the car, however, they discover that the dead man is gone. As the pair attempt to keep Brother Kui distracted from his car, pick up Jelly and her co-worker Rolls (Walking the Dead's Angela Tong Ying-Ying), and bully sushi counter worker Loi (Kam Ching Cheung), the biochemical virus is being spread among unsuspecting customers and security who are about to make a meal of the survivors when the mall closes for the night. A minor cult classic of the new wave of Hong Kong indie cinema, Bio-Zombie was the sixth feature of Wilson Yip who would achieve wider international recognition a decade later with Ip Man and its three sequels. Predating Shaun of the Dead and having more in common not only with the original Dawn of the Dead and Night of the Living Dead – more so than "the" zombie horror comedy Return of the Living Dead – with perhaps a side of Chungking Express (for those of us who are less familiar with the brand of Hong Kong turn-of-the-millenium mix of broad humor and melodrama less exported west outside of the arthouse). The initially unlikable Woody and Zom-Bee both embody the Ben character, Jelly and Roll anticipate the badass Barbara of the Tom Savini remake, and Brother Kui and Mrs. Kui are very much the craven blowhard Harry and long-suffering Helen while some of the zombies demonstrate more intelligence than Day of the Dead's Bud (including zombified Loi carrying off his unrequited love like a fifties B-movie monster). While there is a goodly amount of bite wounds, bullet hits, and severed limbs – starting with a scene patterned after the opening teaser of Jurassic Park – the slow build-up of the first act gives way to a more kinetic "video game" aesthetic as the group must flee their no-longer-safe barricaded space and do battle with the dead before the film shifts once again into a third act of unexpected pathos as the survivors are predictably whittled down, one of the heroes gets bitten and the others must decide whether he presents a danger to them, and a final showdown capped by a surprisingly bleak yet anarchic final scene (a wonderfully dark choice particularly compared to the more "horrific" alternate ending that appeared as an option on DVD releases of the film). 
Video
First released in English-friendly form as a Hong Kong import by Mei Ah in a non-anamorphic transfer with Cantonese and Mandarin audio and poorly-translated English subtitles, the film had its official debut stateside on DVD from Media Blasters' Tokyo Shock line in a non-anamorphic with an additional jokey English dub created stateside as well as both improved English subtitles and the poor Mei Ah subtitles offered as an "Engrish" option, Bio-Zombie made its Blu-ray bow in Hong Kong in 2021 with 7.1 upmixes and an English subtitle option. Vinegar Syndrome's 1080p24 MPEG-4 AVC 1.85:1 widescreen Blu-ray comes from the same "studio supplied master with additional restoration performed by VS." In spite of the warnings implied by that attribution, the film looks "gore-geous" given the neon and fluorescent settings. Gone is a certain "haze" of video noise on the older transfer while it is still easy to distinguish between the living and the living dead under the tinge of the light sources as captured on 35mm Kodak 500 ASA tungsten film (I would've thought 16mm from the DVD presentation). The HD resolution allows the viewer to assess the very lived-in environs of the real mall location as well as the particulars of the zombie make-up which are still rather amateurish but grislier in putrescent sculptural detail than what sometime looked like a bunch of wadded wet tissue and greasepaint. 
Audio
Although the import had 7.1 tracks and Vinegar Syndrome's back cover cites the audio as stereo, they include the original Cantonese mono mix in DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 along with the Mandarin dub. The English dub has not been included because it was not produced by the distributor but stateside and was not available for licensing. The post-dubbed dialogue is always cleanly-rendered while music and foley effects take precedence over "atmosphere" given the budget and the underpopulated setting of the mall. Optional English and English SDH subtitles are provided. 
Extras
The film is accompanied by a new audio commentary by film historian Frank Djeng who cites the "Resident Evil" video game as an inspiration, discusses the ways that the film uses clever wordplay to get around Category III ratings for profanity, the Hong Kong "mall culture" of the era and the mall location where film piracy was rampant along with trade in adult videos, as well as how the film's characters embodied that of the real-life setting. The disc also includes "Bio Zombie" (18:59), an interview with co-writer/director Wilson Yip by Frédéric Ambroisine in which Yip discusses his desire to make a film about the mall culture, particularly at that time around the handover of Hong Kong to China as well as his desire to make a genre film, citing his influences, and reflecting on the film's shortcomings as well as its cult status.  Also new to this release is "Video Games, Contaminated Lucozade and Human Sushi" (12:37), a video essay by film historian Chris O'Neill in which he cites the Romero films as the "populist template" of how the living dead are portrayed on film and cites Bio-Zombie among those American and international films in which filmmakers used the formula to explore their own personal visions. O'Neill discusses the tonal and pacing shifts of the film's three-act structure, noting that this is not uncommon to Hong Kong film of the period but that Yip manages these shifts smoothly while also suggesting that one character's fate was possibly a revision to spare the audience at that point while moving onto the nihilistic finale. The disc closes out with the aforementioned alternate ending (3:17) which was wisely not used (although the presence of a full end credits sequence suggests that it might have been used on some releases).
Packaging
The disc comes with a reversible cover and 20-page booklet featuring "Going to the Maul: Shopping and Chopping with Hong Kong's Bio-Zombie" by Rod Lott – who discusses the film's "disposable" aesthetic – and "At the Arcade: A Photo Essay Inspired by Bio Zombie" by film programmer/writer Ariel Esteban Cayer contrasting the New Trend Plaza location as it is now and the bustling Sino Centre. The first 6,000 units ordered directly from Vinegar Syndrome includes a special limited edition spot gloss slipcover designed by Robert Sammelin.
Overall
Hong Kong's first zombie film Bio-Zombie from future Ip Man director Wilson Yip plays a bit like a slacker Dawn of the Dead yet manages to be its own monster.
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