Shaolin vs. Evil Dead (2004)

Gordon Liu is a Taoist master, who joined by his two apprentices in aiding the dead to reach their final resting place finds himself at war with an ancient evil that has possessed a wayward colleague.

Forget about putting the dead to rest. It’s Shaolin vs. Evil Dead that needs to be buried six feet under and kindly forgotten. Sad to say, but Gordon Liu throws away his considerable talents to star in this low budget turkey that attempts and fails miserably to marry the Western zombie craze with the traditional Chinese vampire mythos.

As much as I love the whole kyonshi (Chinese zombie/vampire) movie genre, it hasn’t evolved or improved since Mr. Vampire (1985), which incidentally happens to be the best hopping corpse movie to date. Just because there hasn’t been an improvement despite numerous attempts, doesn’t mean it isn’t possible. However, Hong Kong has not proven to be a hotbed of fresh ideas in the last twenty years and Shaolin vs. Evil Dead is proof positive.

The movie is set up pretty much rips off the Mr. Vampire franchise with a benevolent Taoist master (Gordon Liu) in an unidentified era corralling a band of kyonshi along with two misfit apprentices. He ends up at odds with a rival Taoist (Terry Fan of The Story of Ricky fame), who has unmercifully taken up black magic to destroy the undead, along with a far more attractive apprentice (Shannon Yoh). Liu’s elder apprentice (Jacky Woo) falls for the girl, even while their masters fight. Far more questionable is Liu’s child apprentice (Shi Xiao-hu, younger brother of Shaolin Popey star Sik Siu-lung) who swallows a ghostly spirit, craps him out his rear as a child kyonshi covered in whipping cream (no joke), and takes the pasty undead youngling under his wing.

The filmmakers’ attempt to spice things up amounts to tossing in a handful of random rotting zombies (in contrast to the orderly kyonshi in Qing-era burial robes), made-for-television digital effects, comic book-style attire, and some convenient new rules regarding Chinese undead.

Most curious is the fact that the movie rambles on with a series of uninspired comic and mock-horror situations and ends abruptly before any resolution is reached. Furthermore, the end credits display scenes from what appears to be the second half of the movie and I must agree with Ric Meyers, who suggests in an audio commentary to the film that those scenes look better than anything appearing in this portion. Since Tai Seng fails to address this discrepancy, it can only be surmised that this movie is either a TV miniseries or something similar to Kill Bill, where a direct sequel was intended to complete the second half of one story. Either way, the viewer is bound to feel ripped off, because it looks like most of the action is in the second half.

For a martial arts movie starring Gordon Liu and backed by former kung fu movie starlet Sharon Yeung Pan-pan (Lion vs. Lion) as executive producer and representatives of Yuen Wo-ping’s posse, this is a pretty big disappointment. Liu is still in great form, just as we saw in Kill Bill, but just everything else about the movie simply stinks. Like too many other Chinese vampire flicks, the horror is treated as a joke by employing lousy make-up effects, pointless physical comedy and by reducing the undead to misunderstood souls simply trying to find their way to the next life. Terry Fan has actually improved as a screen fighter thanks to considerable time spent on many martial arts television series, but little of that is seen here. Unfortunately, the most impressive kung fu display is where a large group of possessed young boys break out in a very coordinated routine. No doubt, the kids were recruited from the nearest wushu academy.

Production-wise, the film has the look of a cheap 1980’s Hong Kong movie where heavy blue lighting is seriously abused and the camera is tilted at random in an effort to create that dynamic Yuen Wo-ping look, when in fact it just looks amateurish. This shoddy camera work is reinforced by at least one place where the camera is unintentionally bumped. The make-up effects vary widely in quality. A few zombies actually look decent, while most of them look embarrassingly bad. A good example is where a zombie runs about with a nicely rotting face, but a surprisingly healthy body. And considering that a fair amount of CGI is used for magic effects, it’s rather surprising that they fail to make use of the technology to enhance the zombies’ look. But clearly, there was an attempt to keep this movie family friendly, rather than tap into the cult flavor of Western zombie classics.

Shaolin vs. Evil Dead is a great example of how not to merge kung fu and zombie movie genres. Give me kung fu fighters kicking the rotting skulls off of hundreds of flesh-munching zombies or zestfully slicing and dicing their way, with broad sword in hand, through a mob of their recently deceased companions. Add a little social satire or one-liners for the kids and a lot of queasy gore to go with the martial arts action and then I might be satisfied. Anything near as bad as Shaolin vs. Evil Dead does not deserve to share its title with Sam Raimi’s excellent cult trilogy and a big “shame on you” goes to the marketing genius who came up with the title.