Kung Fu Zombie (1981)

Ghosts, and zombies, and vampires, oh my!

Check your brain at the door and hope there's not a manic Taoist priest nearby. Kung Fu Zombie is so bad and so stupid it's almost good or at least funny. Billy Chong has to fight a ghost, hopping vampires, real life baddies, a possessed father, and a maniacal vampire in just around 80 minutes.

Fong Fang is the rebellious son of a stern and overbearing father (Chiang Tao having a grand time) who pushes him hard every day in order to be able to fight the Long clan who has a vendetta against them. His words of wisdom when his son wants to take a break, "Meditation is time off." His idea of meditation for his son, is for the son to be tied up while sitting in a giant crock of water. Not father of the year material, but it does pay off when Fong not only has to fight one of the Longs, but also a Long that has turned into a kung fu blood sucking vampire due to a Taoist priest's incantation being disrupted. Cheng Kei Ying plays an inept baddie using the Taoist priest to try and control hopping vampires to kill Fong Jr. Just his luck he's the one who ends up not only dead but a ghost as well! He and the priest go corpse shopping at the local morgue to try and find a body he can be reanimated into. When Fong's dad dies of a heart attack, a body presents itself and the bad guy now wants to use Fong Sr to have revenge on the son. Fong Jr and the hapless priest have to team up to kill two dead guys.

This movie uses wire-fu, trampolines, reverse camera work, and super sped up camera work in a ridiculously fun way. I enjoy Billy Chong's fighting, but he is not a skilled actor even for the genre. To his credit he was young and pretty and never missed the chance to lose his shirt and show off his toned, oiled torso. Even the fights that weren't sped up were quick enough. This was my first time to see human yo-yo kung fu! And the movie also gave new meaning to the terms hot hand and hot foot.

Chong's selfish, childish, and arrogant character was unlikeable for the most part. Thankfully, he did more fighting than talking. The editing was super choppy, possibly due to 20 minutes being cut from the original film, but I'm fairly certain the editing would have been poor regardless. A 100-minute running time shoring up the story would not have helped because the frenetic non-stop action and gags were the only thing this film had going for it. The musical score was as scattered as the plot using a jaunty chase music one moment and shamelessly lifted portions from the James Bond theme the next. The sound department made full use of its zany sound effects to remind you at all times this was a comedy. There was a minimum of vampire gore and papier mache corpses. The most disturbing scene involved a puppy-dog lovers be forewarned.

I learned some valuable lessons from Kung Fu Zombie. #1-the dead can't enter a temple or walk past a picture of the Buddha or they are hit with red lasers. #2-the dead can't enter a jail for the law is the arm of god. #3-huge green leaf hats render the wearer invisible to the dead and practically so with the ladies. They just don’t teach you this stuff in school.

Kung Fu Zombie is everything you want in a cheap kung fu flick with this title. Only for fans of older kung fu movies who know how to set the bar low, like on the ground. For those who don't mind a little cheese to go along with their beefcake, it might be one to try. Remember to bring your leaf hat!


3/9/23

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