Sars Wars: Bangkok Zombie Crisis — movie review
Let’s face it. The Zombie genre is, no pun intended, pretty much dead. Since the release of Resident Evil on the original Playstation, filmmakers and film studios have gone zombie crazy, producing a glut of films running the range from brilliant Zombie action/comedies to tired Zombie remakes and half baked immitators, with an unfortunate emphasis on the latter. Granted, international attempts at Zombie horror have done an admirable job at spicing up the genre (see: They Came Back, Shaun of the Dead). However, the last Asian Zombie movie I watched, Junk, was, save for Kaori Shimamura, pretty much just that. So, although I found the concept of Sars Wars intriguing I went into it with quite the lowered expectations.
Sars Wars: Bangkok Zombie crisis takes place in near future Thailand. Though China would have you believe otherwise, the SARS virus is alive and thriving. In fact, since the last instance of American reporting it has mutated three times over, as well as combined with the Ebola Virus. The new Sars 4 variant turns people into raging zombies, and has affected all areas of Asia, save for good old Bangkok Thailand. As the title would suggest, the city doesn’t stay that way for long. Now, most Zombie films would be happy leaving the story at just the dreaded virus, but Sars Wars goes even further, against this backdrop adding a full on action story centered around a kidnapped girl (in requisite schoolgirl miniskirt of course), and the two kooky martial arts masters tasked with her recovery. Further add to this a building rigged with C4, giant snakes, zombie babies, and a host of plot elements that seem to have been generated using MadLibs, and you have one of the strangest, and most absurdly fun zombie movies in recent memory.
If Sars Wars suffers from anything, it would have to be the standard shortcomings of most modern comedies. Though it starts off extremely stong, with laughs per minute rivaling Borat, the film loses a bit of momentum toward the middle. Thankfully it does regain a bit at the end, though not quite with the same vim and vigor as the start. In line with the story’s completely random storyline are a set of completely random film references, sure to delight everyone from the generic comic film geek to the avid film buff. There are references to everything from Star Wars to Blade to Kill Bill to The Terminator to Michael Haenke’s Funny Games.
Technically speaking the visual style of Sars Wars is as mixed as its plot. Some of the camera work comes off as particularly clumsy (see the Psycho camera roll), while others are completely fresh, conveying a sense of “total cool”. But then again, one has to realize the film industry in Thailand is relatively young when compared to others abroad. It’s actually pretty nice to see directors so willing to experiment.
Sars Wars may be a bit uneven, but has a lot of heart. It’s completely bonkers storyline will have you laughing in the aisles, and its gore-galore approach should satisfy fellow zombie elitits. It’s not perfect, but it’s definitely fun.
The DVD
Discotek Media has presented Sars Wars in its original 16:9 aspect ratio, and original Thai language track. First and foremost, for those of you that have not seen Thai films before, it should be known that rarely does a Thai film’s audio track line up completely with its visuals. Usually there’s a good half to full second delay from action to sound. Furthermore, film stock used can be rather low grade, resulting in terrible looking picture (see the original Thai release of Tom Yum Goong). With this in mind, I must say the quality of the Discotek disc is quite surprising. While the sound suffers from the usual delay, it is quite clear. The same can be said for the video itself. While dark in places, it is never muddy, and retains a respectable level of clarity thoughout.
This being the Special Edition of the film, Discotek has included a sizeable set of deleted scenes. While some are disposable, a lot of these are just as funny as the material in the film. Diskotek has also included a roughly 7 minute Making Of, covering the film’s special effects work, its animated sequences, and its various genre influences.
The disc also features two music videos from the film. One features the Thai rap stylings of lead Suppakorn Kitsuwan, and the other a good example of Thai metal. They’re both actually pretty good songs.
Rounding out the disc are a collection of Discotek trailers. Two are for Sars Wars, one for Burst Dragon, one for Elecric Dragon 80000V, and an odd little Discotek promo reel showing a good sampling of the films in their library. This reel features ribald scenes from Zero Woman: Red Handcuffs as well as scenes from kids fare, like Animal Treasure Island.
All in all Discotek has produced a respectable Special Edition of a very fun film. Though the $24.95 price point seems a little high, the film can easly be found for within the $19.99 range, at which it is definitely worth a look.
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