In recent days, a zombie movie " Crying and Sorrowing " has sparked huge discussion.
On the one hand, this film, as a rare zombie theme in Chinese movies, has aroused high expectations from the audience.
Unfortunately, the higher the expectations, the greater the disappointment. After the video streaming was launched, the audience said after watching it, "That's it?"
Many comments believe that: This film has almost nothing except for its heavy taste, and is disgusting for disgusting .
On the other hand, due to the fact that the movie has a position problem, it has been criticized by netizens and questioned that it deserves to be removed from the shelves.
But whether it is the criticism outside the venue or the controversy in the movie itself, it can all show the audience's disappointment with the film.
However, "Crying and Sorrow" is not the first Chinese zombie movie to cause controversy.
As early as 2012, Taiwanese cult film director Qian Renhao made a zombie movie "Z-108 Abandoned City ".
This film is The first zombie movie in Taiwan Province , with a large scale. According to director Qian Renhao's account, when the film was released in Hong Kong that year, nine plots were cut out before it could be divided into restricted release, which shows the boldness of this film.
However, after the release of this film, the box office did not meet expectations and its reputation was relatively polarized. However, some cult film fans believe that as an exploration work of Chinese zombie movies, it shows full ambitions.
This issue of " Forgotten Cult Movie ", let's talk about this movie -
"Z-108 Abandoned City"
Zombie 108
This film was filmed in 2011 and was shortlisted for the "Horror Movie Oscar".
Director and screenwriter Qian Renhao is an active director in the field of horror and thriller film. In 2010, he made his mark with a rock gangster movie "The Gangster Group". In recent years, he has come to the mainland to develop and directed the top-notch suspense thriller film " Beijing No. 81 II".
In 2011, Qian Renhao created the script of "Z-108 Abandoned City", but he was unable to get an investment for a long time. Zombie movies themselves are relatively niche, not to mention that the local Taiwanese film industry declined after the millennium, and there were not many pure commercial movies , not to mention that investors were allowed to invest in a niche cult film.
As a last resort, Qian Renhao posted crowdfunding information on social media, and finally raised 8.25 million NTD funds. In addition, some donations raised by the director from all walks of life, he finally raised NTD 10 million to produce this movie "Z-108 Abandoned City".
Due to limited production funds, most of the main actors used in the film are friendly. The heroine in the film Yao Caiying is a model and is a low-famous third-tier actress.
is more famous than other characters in the movie. There are martial arts actors Du Yuhang who participated in the "Ip Man" series, powerful male star Gao Jie , action actor Taibao who came from a family class, actor Floor Xuexian , deceased artist Rong Xiang are both the starring and producer, and director Qian Renhao himself also plays the most outrageous villain in the film.
movie mobilized a total of thousands of temporary actors, and the filming site was in Taipei's most prosperous Ximending neighborhood. It was filmed in just fourteen days. This film also created a record of local films in Taiwan. It is an independent film produced by netizens, from extras, production to funds.
Let’s talk about the story. This film has a clear tribute to European and American zombie movies. Many plots in the film can see the shadows of many classic zombie movies. The whole film can be called:
Zombie fuss Ximending .
The "Z" in the title of the film refers to "Zombie" (zombie), and the number "108" represents the story that happened in the abandoned area within 108 hours.
In addition, the area code of Ximending is also 108, so the title of the film has a pun, implying that Ximending area became a doomsday abandoned city after the zombies fell.
The movie opens with a pseudo-documentary background introduction:
A scientist won a medical award for discovering a new type of human gene, but he was not satisfied and illegally used the human body for experiments. He did not expect that the experiment would fail and often overdose him.
Due to a drunk driving killing a family of three, his license was revoked, causing his wife to be separated. Frustrated, he accidentally knocked over the test tube filled with "new human genes" and flowed into the sewer, polluting the local water source.
After drinking, some people's bodies mutated and began to bite their similar species crazily. The zombie disaster kicked off. The movie officially begins. The heroine Linda wakes up from a coma. She originally drove through the Ximending neighborhood with her husband and her young daughter, but she was in a car accident on the way and fell into a coma.
When she woke up, she found that her daughter was not around. Linda, who was anxious to find her daughter, got off the bus and found that the city center in front of her was already devastated. The originally bustling road became empty and the shopping mall was empty, as if the whole city had become an empty city.
Just when Linda was confused, a group of zombies found her in the supermarket and began to chase Linda wildly.
Linda found her lost daughter. She wanted to go back to her car and drive away, but she didn't expect that her husband had also become a zombie. Linda, who was still in shock, had to take her daughter to escape along the road.
Just as a car passed by, Linda, who was desperate, hurriedly took her daughter to stop the driver and got into this unknown car.
At the same time, in a nightclub in Ximending, the black boss was taking drugs here with a bunch of younger brothers.
The black boss just arrested two foreign guys. The other party came to the nightclub managed by the black boss to sell fans privately. After being caught by the black boss, he was ready to teach the two a lesson.
Nightclub is full of money, and the depraved people do not know that the outside world is terrifying disasters are happening.
At this time, a nearby brother Wangfeng reported that a group of special police officers with live ammunition actually came to the nightclub in Ximending.
The black boss mistakenly thought that the police were here to wipe out his group, so he brought his younger brother to exchange fire with special police team .
The battle between the two sides attracted a nearby army of zombies. Faced with the surging tide of corpses, the police and gangsters had to work together, and a group of people fought and retreated to retreat into the building near Ximending.
However, the black boss's wife was also bitten by the zombie. Although the black boss was cruel, he really loved his wife. But in the face of a life-and-death decision, he had to bear the pain and killed his wife with his own hands, but he was still bitten. On the other side, in an apartment building, Linda and her young daughter are being imprisoned here.
The owner of the house is an extremely evil murderer. He used rotten meat to paste his face and deceived the zombies in the city. He drove to the city to collect supplies and women every day. The escaped Linda accidentally got into the murderer's car and was taken into the house by him.
In the crisis of doomsday, the masked murderer gradually exposed his evil nature. He took the surviving woman he found back to the apartment and imprisoned him in the room as his plaything. At the same time, he also caught several zombies and locked them in the basement, using zombies to replace livestock to generate electricity for himself.
Although the outside world has fallen, the masked man has become an underground ruler in his own home.
Nature Linda was not spared, and was imprisoned and abused by the masked man, and her daughter died at the hands of the murderer.
Soon another couple entered the apartment building to take refuge. The masked man coveted the beauty of the woman and pretended to let the two of them into the house.
Afterwards, he knocked down one of the men, but unexpectedly the woman resisted fiercely and accidentally discovered Linda imprisoned in the basement.
In critical moments, the black boss took a few surviving younger brothers and the special police to escape into the apartment building and handed the masked murderer to the death on the spot.
Everyone thought they could take a break for the time being, but the crisis has not ended.
It turns out that the man among the couple who entered the apartment building before was actually a wanted murderer. This is not over yet. What's more troublesome is that the black boss actually had his finger bitten by a zombie a long time ago. He kept hiding this matter until now, and the corpse began to transform.
km3
kmk is afraid of being discovered by the special police, so he started killing him. The house was leaking and raining all night. The black boss turned into a zombie monster at this time, and the survivor team suffered heavy casualties.
In the end, only Linda escaped from the apartment with a lonely little boy and a foreign black man.
When everyone was desperate, the sound of a helicopter suddenly came from the sky. The three of them placed the corpses on the street as "SOS" distress signal, and finally waited for the army to rescue and fled the Z-108 area. The story of the movie
ends here. Although
zombie movies have always been regarded as B-level movies, they have been around for a long time in the European and American film and television industry.
Since the 1960s, the director of zombie films, George Romero, made the famous "Living Dead Trilogy", many directors who have been famous in film history have been keen on such topics, such as " Lord of the Rings " director Peter Jackson . When he was just starting out, he filmed the classic "Clans of Corpse Playing Through the World". It is still a cult masterpiece in the field of Western zombie films.
Chinese film field, Hong Kong director Ye Weixin is a pioneer. He also filmed low-cost zombie films like " Bio-Carrying and Longevity " in the early days, which was well received by the audience. In comparison, Taiwanese zombie movies did start very late, and only director Qian Renhao's "Z-108 Abandoned City" and the subsequent " Corpse City ".
When "Z-108 Abandoned City" was released that year, many commentators criticized the film's weak plot, made a copycat, and denounced it as a shoddy copycat zombie movie.
But to be fair, such a harsh criticism is biased. Considering that the cost of a film is only about 2 million yuan, such a film is considered low-cost even in the field of art films, let alone making a commercial film?
From this perspective, director Qian Renhao still made some highlights under the conditions of limited funding. For example, this film is quite remarkable in the costumes and props level, the special effects makeup and corpse battle scenes are not simple, and as a cult film, this film actually has many highlights. At the level of the drama, this film tries to show the human group portrait in the face of zombie disaster. There is a zombie army outside and a human conflict inside, forcing the gangsters, special police, and civilians who distrust each other have to work together to escape. However, although they work together on the surface, they still have intrigues in secret, and even perform street fighting and killing each other. The feature of
Cult movies is that it is difficult to look at the story from the perspective of an orthodox movie. After all, in this kind of movie, the plot is all over the clouds, and making the audience happy is the key. In an interview, director Qian Renhao once summarized this film as two major selling points: corpse and body.
This film is indeed a scrambled stew that combines elements such as corpse, thriller, murderer, curiosity, suspense, action , but it has a cliché and entertainment. There are also eye-catching beautys outside the thriller zombie scene. Du Yuhang, who has acted in " Ip Man Prequel ", made fun of himself in the film and used Wing Chun to beat zombies. The character of the villain masked murderer is obviously borrowed from "Texas Chainsaw Madness".
In short, black humor plus bad taste, plus pure cool film style , is the biggest selling point of this film.
Of course, to be fair, the shortcomings of "Z-108 Abandoned City" are also obvious. The flaws in the story connection of the film can be seen from the naked eye. There is no plot structure at all. The 50-cent special effects are rampant, and there are many problems in the performance. The most embarrassing thing is the masked murderer who was played by the director himself. Even if he was covered with his face, his performance was very bad, which was the biggest failure of the whole film.
However, is a feature of such a low-cost zombie movie. Spoof, vulgar, and bad taste are all its characteristics. Those who like it will naturally like this alternative style that is self-righteous and deviant.
What's more, with the comparison of "Crying and Sorrow", Qian Renhao seems to be at least really shooting zombie movies. This kind of exploration spirit that dares to be the first is worth encouraging!
