Movie Review: Zombiology: Enjoy Yourself Tonight is an Amazing Film that Blends Everything a Geek Culture Holds Dear!

February 16, 2018

Written by DanXIII

Daniel XIII; the result of an arcane ritual involving a King Diamond album, a box of Count Chocula, and a copy of Swank magazine, is a screenwriter, director, producer, actor, artist, and reviewer of fright flicks…Who hates ya baby?

Lone (Michael Ning) and Yeung (Louis Cheung) are two anime-lovin’ dudes (with their fav being Double Dragons of Heaven and Earth…with protagonists that look a lot like our heroes…or do our heroes look like the characters…more on that in a bit) who dress as pandas to make a living. As perfectly peachy as that sounds, our man Lone has a few problems in his life; like the fact that his ex-con father has returned after a decade in the big house, to try and make amends for injuring Lone’s step-mother, Shan (Carrie Ng), in a car crash that left the former Cantonese opera star crippled and housebound (and resulted in her brother’s death to boot)…or that his last relationship was six years ago (though he and Yeung both have a crush on the paranormal researcher Yit (Cherry Ngan) who happens to be Shan’s niece)…well, at least nothing could be stranger than that, right? You know the answer to that is going to blow your minds…
See, the villain from that anime I mentioned in sentence numero uno up yonder is a monster chicken that can turn people into zombies and lays eggs that can blow people’s heads off….and that foul fowl has just appeared in the really real world! Soon our rag-tag band of heroes is on the run as nearly the entire city has succumbed to that poisonous poultry and turned full on gut-muncher! As the night rolls on emotions will be strained to their limits, flesh will be consumed (as well as some really top-shelf looking fried rice), eggs will be dodged, and chicken monsters will be…well, chicken monsters mostly…I mean their ways are beyond our human ken, so best just to leave it alone…
Zombiology: Enjoy Yourself Tonight is one hell of a strange, and surprisingly heartfelt fright flick. Led by a great cast, with Ning and Cheung displaying great comedic timing and fantastic chemistry that really carries the film, the characters presented are believable, lovable, and tinged with a melancholy that makes them seem like actual human beings rather than card board cut-out zombie food. It’s that endearing quality that permeates the rest of the picture as well as Director Alan Lo, and Screen Writers Nick Cheuk, Nero Ng, and Chi Hoi Pang have made damn sure that there is a grounded (if off-beat) human dynamic at play (with strong themes of conquering your fear…the enemy that must be faced is a chicken after all…and the dynamics that endure between Father and Son no matter how strained the relationship) so that when the balls-out lunacy starts to really amp up we have a solid anchor to carry us through the crazy. Speaking of that; the unique alien/chicken monster and it’s zombie armada are the stuff of B-movie lover’s wet dreams…such a delightfully absurd blending of Tokusatsu style aesthetics blended with tried and true fright flick tropes….horror biz perfection right there my creeps! Also of note are some top-notch animated sequences which bookend the film that bring the world of Lone and Yeung’s beloved Double Dragons to life. ..or are the live action segments just part of the over-all Double Dragons story?
On the (not really) downside, there are a few elements to this film that may make some horror hounds a bit antsy; namely that it takes a good while for the zombie action to begin in earnest, and when it does, it’s more in an action vein than being the full-on splatter fest we have grown accustomed to over the years. I had zero qualms with this, as I loved the characters and wanted to know more of their dynamics before the mayhem ensued…and as for said mayhem, the tone of this film would have been ruined by buckets of blood and grue as this is more of a hyper-real comic book come to life in regards to it’s fantasy elements rather than a straight-up horror film.
Zombiology: Enjoy Yourself Tonight is an amazing film that blends everything that we, as a geek culture hold dear; the ability to rise above our perceived weaknesses and be a hero, a validation for our Otaku tendencies, and a way to reconcile our oft-times strained relationships with our Paternal figures…plus it offers a fair amount of fun. I simply can not recommend this picture enough…see it as soon as you can!!
 

 


 

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