If, like myself, you grew up in darkened theaters watching kung fu classics like THE Chinese PROFESSIONALS (which starred Wang Yu as a one-armed "boxer" and featured a long-haired, fanged fellow known as "the Kung Fu Beast"), or even if you were just fortunate enough to catch some of these monsterpieces of cable television over the years, you'll find in SHAOLIN VS. THE EVIL DEAD some familiar types. For starters, there are the infamous "hopping vampires" of Chinese lore. Throw in a venerable shaman and two sidekicks (so to speak) and you've got all the ingredients for some supernatural kung fu fun. (My favorite part has to be the scene where the boy, uh, "gives birth" to his supernatural son in the outdoor outhouse...) The only real gripe I have with this one is the abrupt ending: the movie ends, quite literally, in the middle of a scene. The clips that run during the closing credits suggest a series of movies have been made... but at no other time during the proceedings are we even aware of this. Other than that, a fun film.
... View MoreOkay here is a movie where you wonder, what was the producer and director thinking. Gordon Liu is a superb actor, and Terry Fan is nothing short of great himself. I was going with the flow of this movie for the fact of the conditions the actors had to work in. The action was okay and the special effects where pretty decent. Even though this movie wasn't Grade A, I felt that it was okay.........................................................................That is until I saw the ending credits!!!!! What in the blue hell were the people thinking about. The 3min credit scene had action better than the whole movie, I mean awesome special effects and fighting. To find out that they were only test shots was a serious kick to the balls of every kung fu movie fan out there. I give this movie a 7. The credits gets a 9.1. If you get this movie and watch it, please by all means anticipate the ending credits.
... View MoreAh, where to begin.... As another reviewer stated, this movie has a lot of promise. I mean, Kung Fu vs. Zombies, how could you go wrong? Suffice to say, this movie goes very, VERY wrong but in a completely different direction than I had anticipated.I thought I was in for your standard cheesy kung fu flick with some zombie action thrown in. What I got was an incoherent (but admittedly well-shot and choreographed) mishmash of scenes that seem to have no real connection to one another, ambling along until it just.... ends. It's hard to sum everything up, but here we go.Gordon Liu is REEALLY hamming it up as a Taoist priest who seems to spend his time walking around town followed by a pack of hopping (yes, HOPPING, like a bunny rabbit) vampires under his control. He's accompanied by his bumbling (but well-meaning) assistant and the token annoying kid. They're periodically attacked by "zombies," who really just kind of grab you and shake you around, not eat your brains or anything. Liu's "occupation" as it were seems to be to bring the souls of the zombies to reincarnation.However, there's also an evil priest in town who just wants to destroy the zombies. Dressed in sparkly black attire and with an anime "bad guy" haircut, I think they wanted to say "menacing" but this dude comes off more as just a shade of "fruity." Such a fine line.... Anyway, periodically Gordon Liu and the Evil Priest meet up every once in a while, gesticulating kung-fu action moves and casting "spells" at each other with names like "ten storms attack master go!!" and whatnot. All in all, the fight scenes have the tone of bottom-of-the-barrel anime such as Dragonball Z or Pokemon.Anyway, before the credits roll you will see (SPLOILERS, but if you really care you need to be sterilized):** Gordon Liu using the "urine of a virgin" in order to protect himself from zombies (who knew?)** The evil priest demanding all the "virgin boys" of a village in order to turn them into his brainwashed slaves** The annoying kid (who's a boy) accidentally "eat" a spirit, become "pregnant" and then "give birth" (don't ask how) to another pasty-faced kid in an outhouseAll this and more! Seriously though, it was the best laugh I've had in a long time. The only reason it gets a 2 and not a 1 is because, for some reason, all of the camera-work, choreography and technical details are remarkably good. Never before has such a well-shot movie coincided with such a COMPLETE lack of anything resembling continuity. It's as if they took a Hong Kong filming crew, and told them "zombies! Kung Fu! just wing it..." The result? Shaolin vs. Evil Dead.
... View MoreShaolin Vs. Evil Dead is a horribly drab film about a monk who goes around putting souls at rest. There is also an ex-student of his who goes around capturing the souls into purgatory.WARNING: It's filmed like an old TV special (maybe it was straight to video) and despite what the box says, there is very little fighting in the film.Nearly everything that the DVD says in the plot synopsis only happens IN THE CREDITS of the film in a TINY screen on the top left. So you won't be seeing the five-element formation... hahaha and also it's not a gore-fest as it claims to be. In fact... I don't recall any blood. There were some worms... and some hopping vampires (sweet... that's why I gave this film higher than a 1) Avoid this film at all costs, unless you wanna get drunk and laugh at the horrendous dubbing with friends. (I watched the first hour subbed but it was so horrid that we switched to dubbed for the end... and no I wasn't under the influence of alcohol when watching it.)
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