everyday is halloween

kung fu zombie [1981] 

i love zombie movies.  i love kung fu films.  a movie that combines said things should make me happy.  i am not.  i am sad.  for this movie should deliver the gory goods of the morti viventi swinging punches & throwing kicks. i mean it's right there in the damn title!  & yet, no.  

this flick stars billy chong as the earnest son of an aging bad-ass ex cop who trains his offspring for the fight of his life.  that fight comes in the form of an undead serial killer looking for revenge against the old man who put him in the clink.

by which is complicated by a bank robber who is also caught & put behind bars by the old lawman & also wants revenge.  the bank robber enlists the help of a taoist priest to conjure up a few zombies to help eliminate the old man's son.

that plan backfires.  the bank robber is killed by his own trap & spends the remainder of the movie looking for a new body to inhabit to wreak his revenge.  he finds the body in the form of the older ex-police officer father who dies, i think, of a heart attack.  

soon the son, played by chong, must fight the undead serial killer vampire, & the undead body of his old man.  

but what is galling is the cheap editing.  the undead move with lightning speed.  the filmmakers speed up the film to get that effect.  instead we are treated to a choppy mis en scene. 

is there zombie styled gore?  a bit.  here & there.  this film is confusing.  mostly the characters are stock played for laughs.  the darkness of the script was lost by the filmmakers in their desire to make things zany.  so the taoist priest is hammed up to the detriment of creating a dark wizard capable of delivering his black magic to the highest paid bidder.  

even the ending is a let down.  i mean this movie just stops.  the taoist priest comes round to making things right by helping to rid chong of his evil creations.  but when the priest drunkenly parades down the street after all the action is done, & he looks over his shoulder, to see - dare i say it? - a clutch of zombies rushing toward him the movie just goes fuck it!  & goes kaput.  the end.

kinda hard to recommend, but i do so not because i gave away the ending here in this review.  the movie is easy to find both on disc & on digital.  i do recommend this movie because of the audacity of its being.  because this film says what the fuck.  comedy, kung fu, horror, take your pick for this movie tries to be all of them.  & if you love trash cinema, like me, you might get a kick in the head by a pic that did what it could to kick & punch & bump in the night.

boo