Zombie Fight Club (2014)

Very well executed

I'll tell you why so serious

Absolutely the worst movie.

Ok... Let's be honest. It cannot be the best movie but is quite enjoyable. The movie has the potential to develop a great plot for future movies

Bad Bath Salts cause a world wide zombie epidemic. The first hour of the film concerns a zombie outbreak in an apartment building. After an hour of fighting zombies and no character introduction we jump to one year later and get one scene of a zombie fight club which was an arena pitting a group of humans vs a group of zombies.The film has crammed everything we love about cult films into one with no regard to characters or plot continuity. The film has has plenty of blood and guts, with lots of shooting and blood splatter. There are hot nude Asian chicks, an arena fight scene, a prison shower scene, some girl-girl action, forced sex, and CG explosions. In spite of having all the bells and whistles it was ill constructed, spending way too much time killing zombies in a hallway.If you have made it this far, that means the title has intrigued you and you want to see it. My advice is a rental.Guide: F-bomb, sex, nudity. The film is dubbed in English and has English sub option.

What can I say? I've been on a "bad movie" binge since The Force Awakens came out and have been snatching not only Star Wars style movies, but many others and this one popped up on my radar through a movie search on Best Buy of all places. I decided that it couldn't be too bad, I mean we don't ever expect huge quality from Asian filmmakers, otherwise they would be in Hollywood, right? That being said, there's something special about Asian movies, whether from Japan or in this case, Taiwan. I had not looked up any reviews or did any other searching, wanting to keep this for a surprise when I watched it... and man, surprised was the right word.There is a game of the same name by Kongregate, I'm not sure if it's related, but who knows. This also has NOTHING to do with Fight Club in any way, shape or form. Sorry, no Brad Pitt to bridge a connection between Fight Club and World War Z (admit it, you'd watch that if it were a movie).I won't spoil it too much, but there's just some things that need to be mentioned.The movie opens up to a run down apartment building and a sudden assault of about three different stories at the same time happening. It's easy enough to keep track of each of these individual plots, but to be honest, they could have cut it down to two... or maybe one, being the "police" team. I'm not even sure if they were indeed law enforcement.One of the issues this movie has is it likes to tease you with just a bit of story, but never really explain anything. I would go into more detail, but I would be here all day. This happens for about the first half-ish of the movie before getting into the really dirty zombie infestation.Toward the 2/3-ish mark, everything literally switches gears and you are suddenly thrust into a post apocalyptic, zombie filled "Mad Max in Thunderdome" style story where the last three remaining survivors of the apartment are shown. One of which is Andy, from the ill-fated police raid on the "mafia", next is Jenny, and finally prof. Wu Ming, who you will remember went psycho after his daughter (Nana) was killed and murdered everyone else. He has become a dictator of sorts, while Adam and Jessica are forced to fight zombies in a gladiator style fight. Honestly, I did not realize Andy and Jenny were the main characters until the last part of the movie, nothing ever leads you to believe that they would make it that far.The last 1/3 of the movie is literally just a few fights and it ends with Wu Ming being killed by his zombiefied daughter whom he has kept locked in a cage until he can fine a cure. Jenny seems to not know where she is or what is going on, despite having been in the middle of all this for a year, but it is never explained.Yes, there are some T&A scenes, though nothing really great to see, possibly due to limits in Chinese censorship. Lots of blood, about half of which is CG. In fact, there is a great deal of CG in this movie, I don't personally have a problem with that, but there are numerous scenes where it is so apparent that it looks like it was done in the late 90's. A great deal of their motion tracking is lacking as you sometimes see blood stains actually trailing behind the object they're supposed to be staining.There is even a scene with an old man that I swear is Pat Morita, but this movie came out well after he passed away. He ends up being some sort of "soldier", but I'm not exactly sure of what because he puts on a digital-cameo army suit and comes out with a pair of mechanical legs which are a complete rip of the lower legs of the power loader from Aliens. It looks like they stripped the foot plates off and lowered the hydraulics, aside from that, it's a near match. It is also stamped with "ZOMB, 1970MAY19" and what could be mistaken as the Umbrella logo from Resident evil. This scene comes way out of left field and like many other scenes, there is NO explanation for it.Overall, if you're looking for a movie where you can just turn your brain off and enjoy some blood, zombies and girls, this will be for you, but please keep an open mind, you aren't getting Dawn of the Dead or Resident Evil with this movie, it's purely fluff and should be taken as such.--- A little about my rating. I gave this a seven out of ten, keeping in mind that I knew this would most likely be a "bad" movie. I tried to give them the benefit of the doubt because it looks like everyone had fun making this movie and even with the confusing plot points, it still got the idea across that "zombie bad, kill zombie" is what we came to see and it's certainly what we got.Just have fun with it.

I didn't know anything about this movie prior to purchasing it from the Amazon marketplace. But hey, it is a zombie movie, and that is essentially all that I needed to know to have an interest in it. Once I received the DVD and read "The Raid meets Dawn of the Dead" on the cover, I must admit that I was intrigued.So did the movie deliver a mixture of "The Raid" and "Dawn of the Dead"? Well, I would have to say yes. Yes it did. There was a lot of action in the movie, much similar to the style and setting as seen in "The Raid". And there was an abundance of zombies and gore throughout the movie. So yes, it was a wonderful mixture of the two movies.And as a fan of both of the previous movies, you might wonder why I am 'only' rating "Shi Cheng" (aka "Zombie Fight Club") a mere six out of ten stars. The reason for that, simply put, is because the movie was really good and entertaining, right up to the point where the story changes from following the outbreak in the skyscraper to where it went to a global thing where a single man was apparently ruling his own empire. From there on, the movie just spiraled out of control and became a farce on itself. It was really a shame, because that really killed the movie off in a most horrible and undeserving manner. Had director Joe Chien continued in the way that two-thirds of the movie was kept, then it would have been a much more enjoyable and awesome movie. But alas, he went in a whole different way; a way which sabotaged all that he had previously built up throughout the course of the movie.For a Taiwanese zombie movie, then "Shi Cheng" was quite good, right up alongside "Z-108 Qi Cheng" (aka "Zombie 108") from 2012.There was a good amount of zombies, blood and gore throughout the course of the movie. And for most parts, then the effects were quite good. Unfortunately there were some instances where you just stare in disbelief at the fake effects. And personally, I think the zombie with the massive maw torso was really stupid. It was something you might expect from the "Resident Evil" game or movie, but it didn't fit into this movie at all, especially since all other zombies were 'ordinary'. But all in all, then the effects served the movie well, and the make-up and special effects department did a good job with this movie.The acting in "Shi Cheng" was adequate for the genre, just don't expect anything on a Shakespearian level, of course.One thing that was interesting and good about the movie, was the fact that no one of the cast was initially safe. You know, whereas many movies tend to keep the main cast alive throughout the entire ordeal. People were dying all over the place throughout this movie. And that was something that worked well in favor of the movie."Shi Cheng" puts Taiwan on the zombie map once more, and helps to establish their foothold in the genre. "Shi Cheng" is very enjoyable, just a shame that the director opted for such a ludicrous approach to the last third of the movie.

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.