Billy plays a kung fu student, taught the martial ways by his hard hearted father. Billy made an enemy in a local wily sideburned thug, who Billy thwarted during a robbery and sent the thug to jail. Now, the thug has returned and enlisted a Taoist priest/wizard to aide him in disposing of Billy. Being a couple of geniuses, their elaborate plan involves having a couple of zombies push Billy into a pit of knives. (Why bother with zombies instead of using average Joes? Well, the movies called Kung Fu Zombie, not Kung Fu Human Henchmen.) Anyway, their grand scheme goes so wrong that the thug is killed instead of Billy, and now the thugs ghost haunts the Taoist wizard and demands that he be put into a new body. So, the wizard and the thug start to scour the mortuaries for bodies. They find a great specimen, but it actually is a deadly killer named Lueng- they mistook him for a dead body because he has killed so many people he is devoid of a soul. Lueng is an old enemy of Billy’s family, and soon he tires to kill Billy in a battle that Billy has trained all of his life for, so Billy comes out the victor, killing Lueng. Trouble is Billy’s dad takes most of the reward money and drops dead. The wizard and the thug try to put the thugs spirit in Lueng’s body, but Lueng is so evil he turns into a vampire and madly roams the countryside feasting on the locals and ready to get revenge on Billy. So, they put the thugs spirit into Billy’s pop, and poor Billy now has his fathers stolen corpse and a mad vampire to deal with.

Kung Fu Zombie is pure, cheap, unadulterated, stupid fun. It doesn’t have good makeup fx. It doesn’t have a great story. The comedy is pretty lame, and the fights aren’t spectacular. But it is all so silly, the film comes out a total winner. It is only out to entertain, and it succeeds. From the Keystone Cops speedup of the robbery flashback, to Billy’s best friend named Hamster, the thug ghost pinching prostitutes, the rampaging thug/Billy’s dad corpse, and the vampire killer Lueng kicking a guys head off and drinking blood from the spurting neck. What more do you want for entertainment? The film succeeds on pure low budget charm, pulling off some goofy comedy, effective mood lighting, good molten corpses, and pure off-the-wall inventiveness.

Billy Chong’s kung fu cinema career was a very short one. While a pop idol in Indonesia, his youthful good looks caught the eye of late 70’s film producers and after a few minor/secondary roles he was soon the featured star of such independent notables as Jade Claw, Super Power, Kung Fu Executioners, and A Fistful of Talons. Despite his success on the minor kung fu circut, around the mid 80’s, he abandoned the world of film and went back to Indonesia and a career as a tv star. The wizard is played by Chan Lau, a very familar face to kung fu fans from his various roles in Blind Fists of Bruce Li (he was one of the con artist kung fu teachers), Dragons Claws, 36 Deadly Styles and Fists, Kicks and Evils. Lueng, the vampire killer was played by Kwan Yung Moon of The Bloody Tattoo, Ninja in the Dragons Den and Dead and the Deadly. I’m pretty sure the thug was Kong Do from Executioners from Shaolin, Tattoo Connection, and Kung Fu Instructor. Director Wa Yat Wang was also responsible for Dynamo, Jade Claw, and Sun Dragon.

THE DVD: Ground Zero. Part of their Blackbelt Theater line of fringe classics.

PICTURE: Widescreen. General wear and tear one expects with an old kung fu film. Mainly it shows the most problems in some of the night scenes where the picture is way too dark (I adjusted my brightness and contrast, which helped a little but some details were still lost in the darkness). For those used to kung fu transfers, the loss of color and sharpness are in the norm. My disc pixelated a little during one scene, but only briefly and it was fairly benign. All in all, I’d say it is acceptable; in the realm of GZ transfers it is actually a pretty good one.

SOUND: Dolby Digital Mono, English dub. Standard bits off minor hiss and track distortion. Its the usual muffle of an aged soundtrack that was done on a scant budget to begin with.

EXTRAS: 8 Chapters- “Lost” Trailers (15:35). Nice bunch of theatrical trailers for Raging Rivals, Enter the Invincible Hero, Dynamite Shaolin Heroes, Buddhist Fist and Tiger Claws and Dragon’s Snake Fist

CONCLUSION: I love this movie and have been waiting for it (and Kung Fu from Beyond the Grave) to emerge on DVD. A cheeseball, late-night favorite. The transfer is weak but the price satisfies. I say if you consider yourself any sort of b-movie kung fu fan, you need to own Kung Fu Zombie.

When I moved down to Florida, I met a guy named Pat who shared my love for all things kungfu, both old and new. It was he who took me to what was, at the time, the holy grail of kungfu movie stores, a place on the outskirts of Gainesville that stocked shelves upon shelves of old school kungfu films, not to mention weird horror and black action films. It was one of those moments where your eyes fill with tears, and you simply want to fall to your knees and mutter "Amitabah!" as you gaze upon the glory. A couple years later, I would meet a girl (coincidentally named Patty) who worked at this same store. I'd like to think that she was impressed by the ferocity with which I devoured their entire stock of kungfu films that first brought us together, but I can't be entirely certain. Ours would be a wild and fun romance culminating in a disastrous move to Charlotte, North Carolina, which in turn lead to my moving to New York to chase fortune and glory. Truly great is the power of kungfu.

In those first few carefree years in Florida, back before another particularly stormy relationship crushed much of my spirit for the bulk of a couple years, few things could bring a glow to my face quite like the nights Pat, myself, our friend Todd, and assorted others would gather around my massive 10-inch television, pop in the latest rental from the video store, and smile as we heard those familiar notes accompanying an animated seahorse flying through space while an announcer shouted "THIS is an Ocean Shores VIDEO presentation!"

Ahh, yes my brothers and sisters, those were, as we say in the old country, the good ol' days. I had a tiny apartment with a worthless air conditioner, good friends, a video store full of dollar rental kungfu films, and a crush on the girl at the counter. That entire period in my life was overflowing with good friends and plenty of fun. We'd stay up til the wee small hours, packed ten in a small room, laughing, drinking, eating, and watching kungfu films. It's hard to separate this film from the circumstances under which I first watched Kungfu Zombie, but that doesn't matter since any way you slice it, this is damn good filmmaking.

Kungfu Zombie was among our favorite rentals, along with War on Shaolin Temple, Young Taoism Fighter, and Jackie Chan's Police Story. Whenever it was our turn to entertain the troops, one of those movies would invariably find its way into the VCR, even if it had to chase away the copy of Black Devil Doll From Hell everyone wanted to see as well. Tons of top-notch kungfu action, comedy, ghosts and goblins, and pretty much everything in the world that I would want to see thrown together in one film is launched at me from the madness that is Kungfu Zombie. The only thing that could possibly make it better would have been if it was in 3D.

Not that it's a flawless film by any stretch of the imagination. The writing leaves a considerable amount to be desired, and none of the characters are very likable people. You certainly wouldn't want any of them for friends, except perhaps the wizard who can resurrect you if you need such services. At the same time, it's not like people are renting a movie called Kungfu Zombie in hopes of seeing rapier-sharp wit and clever writing. More than likely, they are renting such a movie in hopes of watching some living kungfu people fighting some non-living kungfu people, and the movie certainly delivers that in spades. In a way, the movie is perfect despite its flaws, perhaps even because of them.

The under-rated, should-have-been superstar, Billy Chong, stars as a snotty, rebellious kungfu student who constantly fights with his ailing dad. Well, he pretty much just constantly fights, period, and runs really fast. But those are things you can do when you learn kungfu. He's pretty much a jerk, which is something kungfu comedies love to do. They make the hero a total asshole. Sometimes, in the end, he has learned a valuable lesson about the value of humility and respect. More times than not, however, he would beat people up then fart, and that would be the end of the movie. While Billy doesn't do much farting in this, he does get to remain a jerk through the whole movie. Character-wise, there isn't much about the guy for which you can root. But he does kick a lot of ass, and he looks great doing it, so that makes him the hero.

A gang of cut-throats have taken a disliking to the lad and his sidekick, who is named Hamster (he would be good friends with Young Rudy from Wolf Devil Woman). They employ the services of a black magic priest to resurrect some corpses to fight Chong. Granted, it seems a rather complex plan. Employ a priest to resurrect zombies that will, once given the cue, fly through the air and push Chong into a pit filled with spikes. A spike-filled pit seems a rather conventional culmination for a plan that involves resurrecting the dead, but then I'm not really a martial arts bandit, so I guess it's not my place to question their machinations.

When your plan is so intricate that it requires a large number of flow charts, Vinn diagrams, and a priest who can summon the dead, things are bound to go awry. What the bad guys didn't figure on is that after making a rather impressive flying leap from a coffin, a moldy, crumbling corpse is a rather ineffective fighter. Chong dispatches them without much difficulty, not to mention the fact that he's rather unimpressed by the fact that he's being attacked by the living dead. I've watched a lot of zombie films, and a lot of things involving corpses, and despite the fact that I consider myself more or less desensitized to their appearance in movies, I'd probably still be taken aback a tad by the appearance of one in real life, especially if it was flying through the air and trying to punch me. For Chong, however, a gang of zombies is no different than any other gang.

The evil leader guy, who sports a pair of rather sloppy muttonchop burns, accidentally gets pushed into the pit of spikes during the ensuing melee, being justly undone by his own treachery. Satisfied that the night of being attacked by creatures of the night returned from the grave for bloody revenge has ended, Chong heads off for the local tavern to make merry.

Things don't go as well for the wizard, who is soon plagued by Muttonchop's ghost demanding resurrection services. Complications arise due to the fact that Muttonchop's body is badly mutilated after taking the tumble into the spike-filled pit. Let that be a lesson to you. If you are a treacherous villain bent on killing someone who tends to walk through the woods at night, don't employ a wizard to raise the dead in an attempt to push your mark into a spike-filled grave. Instead, just hide behind a bush and shoot him with an arrow or something as he saunters by. It's a lot less complicated, and you have a much slimmer chance of you yourself falling into the spikes. Just because you can summon the dead doesn't mean every plot you hatch has to involve the summoning of the dead.

While Billy Chong may not be an ugly ghost adorned with mangy muttonchops, his life still isn't perfect, either. His family-which consists only of his father and the mysterious Hamster - is dysfunctional, and when a family is dysfunctional in a kungfu film that means all hey do is yell and try to kick each other. Just about every interaction between Billy and his dad consists of the following exchange:

Father: "Ungrateful bastard!"
Billy: "Go to hell, old man!"

Which is then followed up by a few minutes of fighting that culminates in the father nearly dying of heart failure, muttering "You're killing me, you ungrateful son of a bitch!" which elicits a smirk from Billy, who will wave bye-bye and go out on the town with Hamster. As one may guess, there isn't a whole lot to like about either Billy or his father. They're both assholes. Even when the father isn't scolding Billy, he still talks to him in an angry, condescending manner. Billy responds by goading his father into having another heart attack, which is the source of much hilarity around their household. The mother probably died just to get some peace and quiet.

The father soon reveals to Billy that he has been yelling at him so much because they come from a family of constables, and even as they speak, a blood enemy of the family is coming to seek revenge. It doesn't matter if he kills the father or Billy, so long as he kills someone. Billy sees this as little more than his father using his own son as protection against a bad guy, and the father pretty much responds with, "Yeah, so what? And you're a no-good little bastard, too." Then I think they fight, the dad has a heart attack, and Billy goes out gambling with Hamster.

Meanwhile, Muttonchops is busy haunting the priest, and in his spare time, feeling up sexy ladies. Hey, if you were invisible, don't pretend like you wouldn't at least be tempted to cop a cheap feel off the local harlot. The priest eventually agrees, as the nightmarish haunting takes the form of things like the ghost pulling the priest's seat out from under him, constantly moving his wine out of reach, and other dastardly spooktacular shenanigans. Down at the local morgue, they find the freshly dead body of a powerful kungfu fighter who is obviously evil on account of his long hair and black cape. When the gang leader tries to inhabit the corpse of the super-baddie, they discover that the guy is, in fact, not quite dead. I guess he just likes sleeping in a coffin down at the local morgue. Awakened from his slumber, the villain makes a beeline toward Billy's home to extract a little revenge.

The two fight for hours, and Hamster whiles away the time by constantly dumping buckets of water on Billy for no real reason other than it makes Billy's muscle glisten a bit more. It's all the reason you need, I guess. I know if I had muscles in place of the puny sticks occupying the position of arms on my body, I'd always have a guy named Hamster around to dump water on me. I'd also probably do that thing where when someone asks you the time, you check your watch and flex your bicep at the same time. Then I'd go down to the beach and kick sand in my former self's face.

Chong is eventually victorious, killing the bad guy and collecting a sizable reward, which his father promptly takes for himself. Why does Billy even live with this guy? You know, filial piety only needs to goes so far. The wizard-priest and Muttonchops figure they can try to use the bad guy's body again for another resurrection attempt. Since they only get three tries before Muttonchops is condemned to roam the earth as an incorporeal spirit, 'Chops inspires confidence in the wizard by using the old encouragement tactic of slapping the wizard in the head and yelling, "You better get it right this time, you stupid bastard!" The wizard, who commands the all the vast powers of darkness, takes this abuse for some reason. I guess he and Billy are kindred spirits in a way, despite being on opposite sides of the law. But since the film isn't really interested in this as a plot device as much as it is interested in scenes of guys engaged in Moe-Larry type relationships, let's just drop the whole thing.

They mess up again, discovering this time that the bad guy is simply too evil to be killed by normal means such as breaking his neck. The failed possession attempt also transforms the baddie into a super-invincible mega-bad zombie. He's not one of those slow Night of the Living Dead zombies either. He hauls ass and has invincible kungfu. We Westerners think that when the zombies come (and they will come), they will be slow and rotten and easy to kill simply by shooting them in the head or hitting them with a pipe. We're not ready for the eventuality that they might all be a bunch of buff, invincible masters of the martial arts.

The zombie guy immediately sets out to kill Billy Chong. And meanwhile, the bumbling gang guy half-possesses Billy's dad, resulting in some weird behavior as the two fight for control of the body. Eventually, Chong has to face off against his possessed dad and the super invincible zombie guy. Luckily, a monk shows up out of nowhere to lend him some advice and holy relics just before the zombie's hands burst into fists of flame! Things just get wilder from there on out.

On the surface of things, this is a pretty straightforward movie. When you dig a level deeper, however, what you discover is that there isn't a deeper level, and you should have stayed up on the surface level instead of ruining the floor by digging around. But not every movie has to be a deep reflection on the dark heart of man. Sometimes, a movie can just be about a loudmouth braggart kicking a zombie's ass, and that's the road Kungfu Zombie chooses for itself. The writing has just enough effort put into it to propel it from one supernatural fight scene to the next, and that's all it really needs.

The fight scenes come fast and furious, and though some undercranking is obvious in spots, it doesn't detract from the overall quality of the kungfu. Billy Chong is a superb looking fighter, carrying himself with a lethal combination of grace, speed, and power. It's a wonder he didn't become a bigger star than he did, but from what I hear, he's quite the attraction these days down on Malaysian television. You can't complain about steady work, I guess. I'd certainly trade in my job to be a big star on Malaysian television.

The final fight between Chong and his supernatural-powered nemesis is one of the top old-school fights out there, and while it doesn't come close to the pure frenetic genius of the Sammo Hung/Yuen Biao fight scenes contained in films like Prodigal Son, Magnificent Butcher, or Sammo's own supernatural kungfu farce Encounter of the Spooky Kind, it's still great stuff. The fights before that are all short but sweet as well, and while I would have preferred a few more minutes of kungfu in place of more malicious comedy, there's really no good reason to complain about a film with this much action in it.

The comedy is hit or miss, and while it misses more than it hits, it doesn't miss in a way that would turn you off to the film. I'm guessing the relationship between Billy and his dad is played mostly for laughs, but after a while, it's not funny so much as it is like one of those times when you were a little kid over at a friend's house while the friends was getting yelled at by his parents. You just sort of sit there sheepishly and awkward, trying to pretend you don't notice your friend is getting spanked right in front of you. Looking back, at least you can be thankful that your friend and their parents were not kungfu aces who settled all their arguments by yelling "Bastard!" and proceeding to kungfu the crap out of one another for the next five minutes.

On the plus side of the comedy is the guy who plays the wizard. He's superb as the not-entirely-evil priest who can't seem to catch a break, especially when he has to walk around town wearing a giant leaf hat in order to avoid the angry ghost whose resurrection he botched three times. A combination of wonderful facial expressions and perfect timing make him the standout performer in the film even up against Chong's impressive kungfu skill. The rest of the cast performs dutifully but without anything really spectacular to make them memorable. Muttonchops is just there to bellow and make the "angry surprised" face a lot. His accomplices fulfill the standard old school kungfu roles of "goofy fat guy" and "goofy skinny guy." If you are wondering about the inclusion of the giant fake wart with the single piece of super-thick hair coming out of it, don't worry. Hong Kong filmgoers seem to find that sight gag endlessly hilarious, and this movie isn't about to let them down.

The guy who plays the actual kungfu zombie is pretty damn good in his role as well. Though the white trousers and cape with no shirt look probably doesn't work for everyone (I've tried it several times), he manages to pull it off. I guess it helps that he is one of the living dead, well nigh indestructible, and can make his feet and fists burst into flames of fury. That's not the sort of guy you generally go up to and sneer, "Nice outfit, buddy."

Kungfu Zombie isn't an expensive film, and it does its best to cover the lack of funds by not aiming too high in the special effects department. Some eerie colored lighting, a few good and gross corpses, and a fog machine are all it needs to successfully create an inexpensive but interesting otherworldly feel. Since the movie is primarily about kungfu and secondarily about laughs, getting a good scare out of people isn't one of the top priorities. Still, the director manages some eerie shots, even if their eeriness is undercut by all the wacky goings-on. The movie is certainly put together a lot better than many of its contemporaries operating on a similar budget.

Kungfu Zombie is probably a better film for seasoned old school vets or people just looking for a severely twisted and delightful little mindwarp of a film. In the greater scheme of things, Encounter of the Spooky Kind is a better movie all the way around, and if you are looking for an introduction into the wild world of supernatural kungfu hijinks, you'll be better served by either Spooky Kind or Mr. Vampire, both of which are more successful in their comedy and chills, have better performances from actors and fighters, and simply had more money and talent behind them. Not that it's an insult to say something isn't as good as one of those two films. Spooky Kind was directed by and starred Sammo Hung, and Mr. Vampire had the benefit of Hung as a producer. In the late 1970s, early 1980s, no one -- and I mean no one -- was better than Sammo Hung. He completely revolutionized the kungfu film, delivering a level of energy and action that had never been seen and has never been matched since then.

So it's not so bad for Kungfu Zombie to be seen as sort of the plucky little brother of Sammo's better supernatural kungfu comedies. This movie was one of the defining elements of my journey toward being a kungfu film nutcase. It's crude and cheap, but it also has great energy behind it, not to mention some spectacular kungfu and a few creepy seconds scattered throughout the madcap zaniness. Although not the best example of the genre, Kungfu Zombie is a film I have a lot of fond memories of and still watch from time to time. Despite the loud performances and unlikable characters, the movie has charm and charisma. Watching it is like hanging out with old friends, even if you and your friends weren't the type to be resurrecting kungfu powered zombies to do your bidding.

This is, sadly, one of the worst films for Indonesian pop star turned kung fu expert Billy Chong. There are three major flaws with the film. The first involves the fight sequences of the film. We get to see the highlighted kicking skills of not only our man Chong, but that of Korean bootmaster Kwon Young Moon, who is our titular Kung Fu Zombie here. The problem is that the fights involved way too much undercranking. This caused the fights to be too sped up and pretty much ruined them. The other problem involves Chong's finale against Kwon. During their fight, a Taoist priest arrives and assists Chong with beads and papers. This leads me to the third flaw, which is running time. The film was way too short, clocking in at 78 minutes. What the screenwriters should have done is filmed a scene where Chong's Pang Fong learned of the vampire and ghost stuff and train with a Taoist priest. This plot hole would have fans asking "Where the heck did he come from?". So, this isn't exactly the best from Chong, but let's face it...there are far more worse films than this.