Just perfect...

Bad Acting and worse Bad Screenplay

Awesome Movie

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

A zombie outbreak leaves the residents of a tower block fighting for their lives. One year later, and survivors Jenny (Jessica Cambensy) and Andy (Andy On) find themselves at the mercy of a schoolteacher turned tyrant who pits the living against the dead in a gladiatorial arena.According to the quote on the DVD cover, Zombie Fight Club is The Raid meets Dawn of the Dead. Yeah, and I'm Iko Uwais' personal trainer. The fact is—as if you really need to be told—that this Taiwanese action/horror hybrid is nowhere near as good as either of the aforementioned classics. It's got an uneven structure, unlikable characters that it's hard to give a damn about, unimpressive fight action, and lots and lots of gore, the vast majority of which is CGI.It's not all bad news though: some of the zombie makeup is fairly impressive, there are quite a few very attractive ladies wearing sexy outfits, and we get one sequence that is so outrageous that it cannot fail to entertain: while a crippled old man fights zombies with the help of hydraulic power-legs and a chainsaw, Jenny and Andy drive his BMW—parked conveniently in the middle of the apartment building—at speed down a corridor and through an external wall, falling several storeys, both somehow surviving the impact.

I didn't know anything about this movie prior to purchasing it from the Amazon marketplace. But hey, it is a zombie movie, and that is essentially all that I needed to know to have an interest in it. Once I received the DVD and read "The Raid meets Dawn of the Dead" on the cover, I must admit that I was intrigued.So did the movie deliver a mixture of "The Raid" and "Dawn of the Dead"? Well, I would have to say yes. Yes it did. There was a lot of action in the movie, much similar to the style and setting as seen in "The Raid". And there was an abundance of zombies and gore throughout the movie. So yes, it was a wonderful mixture of the two movies.And as a fan of both of the previous movies, you might wonder why I am 'only' rating "Shi Cheng" (aka "Zombie Fight Club") a mere six out of ten stars. The reason for that, simply put, is because the movie was really good and entertaining, right up to the point where the story changes from following the outbreak in the skyscraper to where it went to a global thing where a single man was apparently ruling his own empire. From there on, the movie just spiraled out of control and became a farce on itself. It was really a shame, because that really killed the movie off in a most horrible and undeserving manner. Had director Joe Chien continued in the way that two-thirds of the movie was kept, then it would have been a much more enjoyable and awesome movie. But alas, he went in a whole different way; a way which sabotaged all that he had previously built up throughout the course of the movie.For a Taiwanese zombie movie, then "Shi Cheng" was quite good, right up alongside "Z-108 Qi Cheng" (aka "Zombie 108") from 2012.There was a good amount of zombies, blood and gore throughout the course of the movie. And for most parts, then the effects were quite good. Unfortunately there were some instances where you just stare in disbelief at the fake effects. And personally, I think the zombie with the massive maw torso was really stupid. It was something you might expect from the "Resident Evil" game or movie, but it didn't fit into this movie at all, especially since all other zombies were 'ordinary'. But all in all, then the effects served the movie well, and the make-up and special effects department did a good job with this movie.The acting in "Shi Cheng" was adequate for the genre, just don't expect anything on a Shakespearian level, of course.One thing that was interesting and good about the movie, was the fact that no one of the cast was initially safe. You know, whereas many movies tend to keep the main cast alive throughout the entire ordeal. People were dying all over the place throughout this movie. And that was something that worked well in favor of the movie."Shi Cheng" puts Taiwan on the zombie map once more, and helps to establish their foothold in the genre. "Shi Cheng" is very enjoyable, just a shame that the director opted for such a ludicrous approach to the last third of the movie.

I'm not sure what Shi Cheng means exactly (not that it matters now, after watching it), but I'm sure it doesn't translate into "Zombie Fight Club". I'm not even sure (or wasn't most of the time), why they chose that title. Apart from making this appealing title wise to some viewers (?), I reckon.But even after understanding somehow, why they chose that title, it's kind of lame. But let's get back to the movie, that has scantily dressed women in it (there's a bit of nudity during a sex scene too, in case you were wondering) and some fighting and shooting in it too. There's a bit of an attempt to make some zombie jokes and other things to that effect, that either kind of work or are annoying. Depending on your taste. The action scenes (stunts) are pretty decent and the actors are pretty ... if that helps

I agree with another reviewer on this movie. This really is all over the place. The director seems to have no direction ironically enough. It can't seem to decide what genre it wants to be, a horror, a martial arts or a dystopian post apocalypse but fails really in all areas. There is a fair amount of illogic in it which makes it very disjointed and nonsensical. It was empathized in the first part of the movie that the storm clouds in the sky were strange, alluding to this being the cause of the oncoming zombie outbreak but this was a pointless exercise as it had nothing to do with it. Also the dialogue kept being intertwined between English and Mandarin for no reason at all. Conversations would take place where both languages were mashed together when they were all obviously native Asians and there was no need to speak dual languages in the same conversation. Why was there a car half way up a high-rise and why did they drive it along a corridor and nose dive it off the building? These were all just plain daft scenarios that should never have been put into the movie. The second part of the movie was kind of tacked on and didn't flow at all. It's almost as if the director just ran too short on the first half so padded it out with this bullsh*t section. I hardly think a timid school teacher from the first part of the film would be a gangland boss in the second half. This was a totally preposterous idea and just spoilt the movie. I just think the director wanted to cram too many ideas into the movie or wanted to make many movies but only had a budget for one. Either way it didn't work and what could have been a perfectly adequate zombie-fest in a block of flats turned out to be a confused, illogical and shabby mish-mash.