maiden taiwan.

If nothing else being stuck in lockdown due to this pesky Coronavirus means that I can at least keep up to date with world politics and see how other countries and the various organizations around the globe are handling the crisis.

Which in many cases is really quite scarily.

Take Taiwan for example.

Is that a crown he wears?

You see, Taiwan is classified as a part of China by the UN (and The World Health Organization) because China - being a wee bit mad and controlling decided that it was part of its own territory even tho' the Communist Party has never ever ruled over the place.

Or even visited.

You'd think that someone would pull them up for this (or at least take the piss a wee bit when they weren't looking but no, China is allowed to do this because , um reasons so whenever Taiwan takes part in any WHO types stuff it has to do so under the name Chinese Taipei.

Until that is Taiwan elected a China-baiting independence loving president, Tsai Ing-wen, in 2016 much to Beijing's annoyance. 

Anyway rather than sort this all out everyone just kinda pussy-footed around the issue in the hope it would go away, which was all well and good until the whole Corona thing exploded and WHO attempted to get a world-wide picture of the epidemic. 

A world-wide picture that included Taiwan.

Or “Taiwan, China,” as they called it.

Or was it “Taipei.”?

Nope because at one point it was most definitely “Taipei and its environs”.

Sorted. 

If it's the Chris Chibnall era you can fucking keep it.

As you can imagine Taiwan’s foreign ministry were slightly annoyed and made a point of asking why they just couldn't be listed as “Taiwan” and why their data couldn't be counted separately  from the Chinese stuff. 

When faced with such a backlash WHO did what any serious organisation would do at a time like this - they pretended that the line was crackly, then said they couldn't hear anything before finally just ignoring the problem in the hope it would go away.

Genius.

So in reality we have absolutely no idea how Taiwan would - or is - actually dealing with a global pandemic, unless that is we have a rummaged thru' their film releases.

So with that in mind let's dive headfirst into the - slightly - sexist world of...



Zombie 108 (2012).
Dir: Joe Chien.
Cast: Yvonne Yao, Morris Rong, Tai Bo, Jack Kao, Sona Eyambe, Chien Jen Hao, Chloe Lin, Dennis To and loads of other folk.

“I regret that I didn’t screw you to death.”

Bullet nippled and obscenely short shorted young mum, Linda Bellingham (Yao, who I'm assuming is the directors girlfriend) wakes from a terrible - off screen - car crash to find her husband lying unconscious with a steering wheel stuck in his head and their small daughter, Chloe (Lin who's either a real child in her first film role or a well preserved dwarf, either way she has a fucking huge head, which coming from me tells you something), missing from the back seat.

Crikey, talk about starting with a drama.

She frantically (and very sweatily) begins to search the desolate streets before seemingly giving up and heading into a supermarket to steal some water.

And fix her lippy.

Well, in the middle of a disaster you have to get your priorities right.

Sauntering around the fancy goods department on the look out for a new broom our hot panted heroine comes across (not literally tho' maybe later) a sight that will haunt her nightmares for, oooh, minutes after.

It appears that the entire staff have turned into flesh eating zombies and are currently busy munching on the customers.

Don't you hate it when that happens?

A normal day at Dudley Tesco.

Barely managing to flee the building with her life (or at the very least still fully clothed), Linda spends the next ten minutes dodging the undead and hoping her tits don't pop out before spotting Chloe on a street corner (they start them young in Taiwan) about to get eaten.

Racing across the road to grab her daughter she's surprised when a car veers in front of the pair and the driver beckons them in.

Quickly evading the mumbling monsters mum and daughter jump aboard, which would be all well and good if the inside wasn't decorated with hundreds of pictures of nude ladies.

Or the seats covered in spunk.

Linda quickly realizes that she has inadvertently stumbled into something much worse than the approaching zombie hordes.

And far more terrifying than Sir Jimmy Savile's camper van.

"I'm a wanderer, and always have been, so I love motor-homes and especially shagging in them. Sometimes I get home, check my post, shower and then shag a wean in the camper van outside!"

Smoothly jumping back a few hours to before these events unfolded via the wonders of CGI and a heavy rock score and we're in the Taiwanese equivalent of Chubby's Nitespot in Blackpool club, business is looking good and the place is packed with drunken westerners, caged topless dancers and lots of folk in open necked white nylon shirts frugging away to Taiwan's answer to Black Lace.

Groovy.

In charge of the club (and the whole Ximen district) is the lard lovin' drug lord Susan (Rong, the far east's answer to James Corden), aided and abetted by his motley gang of heavily armed bad boys.

Unbeknownst to the lardy one tho,' the local SWAT team are in the area with orders to evacuate the whole city due to the aforementioned scientist accidentally  letting his virus loose.

It seems he mistook the test tube for a vial of KY jelly only realizing his mistake when his cock tried to bite him mid wank.

Not that Susan gives a damn about this seeing as his currently cracked off his tits and surround by a bevvy of butt naked barely legal babes.

Do you think they'll eat her whole or will they spit that bit out?

Mistaking the police presence for a raid (which is another, much better film entirely) Susan's boys unleash their massive weapons spraying death and destruction in the faces of the hapless cops before realizing the true enemy are the boys in blue, but those pesky extras painted green.

Quickly putting their differences aside survivors on both sides must work together if they have any hope of making it thru' the night.

But the merry band are low on ammo and if that wasn't enough the token females are all dressed in spangly pants, bra tops and high heels which aren't the best things to be wearing in the middle of a zombie invasion.

Saying that tho' the director doesn't seem to mind as every other shot seems to be a crash zoom down someones cleavage.

Which I must admit is nice but does tend to destroy the scary ambiance somewhat. 

"I'm sorry, I have my woman’s period!"

Meanwhile poor Linda and her daughter (remember them?) are being held captive by the creepy guy who 'rescued' them earlier (Jen Hao looking for all the world like Matt Lucas in drag) who, it turns out is actually a sex crazed, bacon obsessed rapist who's using the current state of city-wide panic to abduct young girls, chain them up in his basement and bugger them senseless whilst humming show tunes.

OK I made the last bit up but frankly nothing would surprise me by this point.

Cue a story stopping 20 odd minutes of unnecessary rape scenes, made all the more uncomfortable by the directors insistence of finishing every assault with lingering soft focus shots of Yvonne Yao's semi naked, sweat covered thighs and breasts.

So it's a blessed relief when we kick back into the mindless - non sexual - violence with the rapidly dwindling group of gung ho gangstas and SWAT squaddies surrounded by the undead with an ever diminishing supply of ammo.

Not only are they close to becoming zombie fodder but Susan's wife has turned green forcing him to shoot her in the head, the scantily clad female cop (I'm assuming all police women in Taiwan dress like Lara Croft, I've never been there so how would I know?) has disappeared during a confusing fight scene and a black American dude (music producer, composer, deejay and all round sexy man Eyambe, he even has a Facebook fanpage) has turned up for no other reason than he can base jump.

Saying that tho' he is bloody good at it.

How your girlfriend really got that promotion.

Suffice to say that loads of stuff happens (gun fights, stealing cars, zombie attacks and, yes more rape unfortunately) before the survivors stumble upon the bacon man's apartment looking for a safe haven...

With zombies at the door and a mentalist on the sofa the question is who will survive and more importantly how, if the zombie plague is only a few hours old, has the pervert managed to already capture three of them, built a holding device and trained them to power his flat by walking around a big wheel?

Some of these questions may be answered.

Only some mind.

Thought it best to warn you.

You haveta admire Joe Chien in some ways, given the chance to make a feature it's almost as if he was so worried that he'd never have another shot at it that he decided to throw every idea he'd ever had at this one movie before standing back and seeing what stuck, creating an enjoyable if totally incoherent mess of a movie.

I mean, the sheer number of characters involved would shame Game of Thrones, for the films meagre 83 minute running time there are over 30 main characters, some named, some not but all of them speaking.

From Linda and her daughter Chloe, whom we assume are going to be the main focus, thru to Susan, his wife and his cronies via the SWAT team - with it's unrequited love between two characters subplot via the aforementioned sex criminal, characters appear and disappear like magic, some even off screen leaving plot threads dangling like noodles from the serial killers chin.

Did I not mention there's one of those in it too?

A torn, tight vest top, the official uniform of the zombie apocalypse.

And it's the whole dirty pervert subplot that derails the whole film when suddenly what's turning into a nice wee survival horror story screams to a halt as the aforementioned mad rapist appears from nowhere, complete with his own torture chamber resplendent with giant jars containing the bodies of pickled women and deformed babies whilst a gaggle of the undead are used to power his house.

It's this section, whilst being genuinely unsettling to watch - especially the scenes where the pervert begins urinating on Linda as she begs to see her daughter and when he bemoans the fact that he's going to have to wait a few years to 'enjoy' Chloe - belong in a different movie entirely, dragging, as they do the audience out of the fun atmosphere created so far and into something much darker.

And that's not necessarily needed.

Inside Jeremy Forrest's mind.

It's not all bad tho', with some scenes that are genuinely funny - the attack on the American druggies by the zombie stripper for example- and others which up the creepiness factor considerably.

It's just the other stuff (rape, sexism and erm even more rape with a touch of necrophilia) that gets in the way.

If Chien was hoping to make a movie in the same vein as Evil Dead 2 then he's about a third of the way there, if only he'd gotten someone to trawl thru' his ideas for him (preferably a woman so she can slap him when he descends to far into Jimmy Savile/Peter Sutcliffe Territory) and keep him focused then he could've made a much more entertaining flick.

Tho' judging by the films success and success of its sequel Zombie Fight Club (featuring as it does former UFC fighter Jessica Cambensy, Cat III starlets
Candy Yuen Ka-ma and Heng-Yin Chou dressed in leather thongs cage-fighting zombies) I'm maybe in the minority in thinking that all the sex and rape scenes were unnecessary.

Yup, the 'shite in mah mooth' man finds something a weee bit uncomfortable, who'd have thought it?

Aye, exactly what I'd wear to fight zombies....

At the end of the day tho' the majority of it is fairly enjoyable nonsense but be warned, you'll be seeing breasts in your sleep for months afterwards.

And not all of them will be as shapely as Yvonne Yao's.

Or your mums.