Shaolin vs. Evil Dead

For those of you not well-versed in traditional kung-fu movies, vampires are white-faced and hop around with their arms out. This movie explains that a monk walking in front of the vampires rings a bell to intentionally make them hop and keep their arms out. This is done so they keep a safe distance from the zombie in front of them and by hopping, they keep out of trouble. I didn’t say it made sense, I just said it got explained.

A Master and his two young underlings are parading a group of undead through the city. They stop for food where the master whips out this magical viewfinder to see that everyone is a zombie in the restaurant. The trio ends up getting attacked at the restaurant and for some reason, the master never thinks to ring the bell (that would have been my first reaction, honestly). Considerable fight ensues in the faux restaurant and just when it looks like they’re about to die, a pair of zombie hunters show up (from the same school as the Master vampire-walker) and help them out. Unfortunately, one of the two underlings gets a spirit shoved down his throat and is now secretly possessed. Meanwhile, the older underling makes eyes at one of the zombie hunters that shows up to help.

They master and his vampires get back to the mortuary and get the vampires all buried and the trio go about their business the next day. The zombie hunters turn out to be not the nicest people in the world, and the oldest underling is torn because he really likes the lady zombie hunter. The zombie hunters raise a demon for the villagers and then defeat it in a show of power. Various battles ensue.

Then, out of nowhere, the movie ends. I thought the DVD had frozen up, but it was actually the end of the movie. It gets worse, people. During the final credits, there’s a split screen: cast and crew on one side, action clips from the film on the other side. I would normally be fine with that, except for the fact that none of the clips they were rolling were actually IN the film. And what’s worse, is I couldn’t tell if they were scenes that had been cut out of this one, or came from a prequel that I didn’t know about or are scenes from Part 2, if that exists. They looked like there were the same people, but fighting various CGI monsters and blowing things up - none of which I saw. Super weird.

Despite the abrupt ending, this film was really well done. The CGI could use some help, but the fighting was good and the acting was pretty good. Watching with the subtitles and the English audio is always hilarious, so I think the story was good as well – if it actually had an ending. It isn’t an amazing film or anything, but as far as martial arts films shot in modern times to look like traditional kung-fu, it’s pretty good.