While the Taiwanese genre scene has seen plenty of stellar and high-end success recently in the wake of titles like “Mon Mon Mon Monsters” or “The Sadness,” Taiwan first emerged on the zombie market with this effort from genre director Joe Chien back in 2012. Keeping things straightforward for this first go-round toying with the genre, not only would Chien improve on this style later on in his career but so did the rest of the country with later genre efforts advancing nicely from what was started with this one.
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Following a viral outbreak, a radiation leak from a nuclear power plant spreads a mutated virus across Taipei which starts to turn the populace into flesh-eating undead. The government tries to prevent the spread of the zombie plague by creating a quarantine zone and sending in SWAT teams to evacuate civilians and wipe out the ghouls. When one of these police squads, led by a Commander (Jack Kao) and his subordinates (Jackson Lou), and (Dennis To), cross paths with a violent mafia gang leader (Morris Jung), the two are soon at each other’s throats until being forced to join forces to survive. Meanwhile, (Joe Chien), a bizarre perverted murderer, uses the chaos as a cover for snatching more female victims whom he keeps chained up in his basement for his sick pleasures. Linda (Yvonne Yao), a young mother, has the misfortune to fall into his clutches while trying to escape the city with her daughter and ends up in one of his cages. When everything comes together and descends on their apartment complex hideout, they’re forced to deal with everything and the rampaging zombies on the loose.
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“Call of the Undead” is a highly enjoyable and fun zombie movie. As is the case with so many zombie titles, the fact that there’s so much action here is one of its main factors. The first encounter in the supermarket after awakening from the accident is fun as the different encounters with the swarms feasting on the remains of patrons and being chased out of the store make for a creepy start. It’s all added along with the appropriately gory and bloodied bodies found in the aisles adding to the fun. The scenes of the SWAT team getting attacked by the gangsters in a blazing gunfight before finding the zombies drawn to the gunfire and attacking the two groups in a mass panic, and the shorter attacks featuring the reporter being chased away or the zombies appearing in the club where the tied-up victims are stuck together, all give this one quite the fun, fast and frantic start.
This continues in the second half of “Call of the Undead.” By focusing on the efforts of Kao’s team to not only battle the zombies in the streets but to also keep the civilians safe, there are plenty of great battles and gunfights in a large part of the film. This shows everyone attempting to get away from the creatures which gives off some rather fun scenes in the streets showing the survivors running into the hordes and forcing them into extreme measures to take care of and avoid them. The numerous gunfights that arise from the creatures breaking in and the group’s desperate escape from the bunker add excitement, with a thrilling battle to reach the truck amid swarming zombies, while the hand-to-hand martial arts bring an extra layer of dynamic action. Likewise, the finale where the few remaining participants are trying to stay alive in the bunker where the creatures have trapped them and force them to barricades to hold off the zombies as they try to make their escape gives this a kind of frantic high-energy finale to make for a stellar finish.
There are a few minor problems with “Undead.” The biggest issue here is writer/director Chien’s script where it introduces plenty of unnecessary elements into the story for little reason. A zombie outbreak trapping a SWAT team and their gang targets would’ve been fine enough without adding in other outside elements. This includes the film’s diversions into the torture dungeon where the pervert has Linda among the others tied up and goes on raping them. This has no reason to be here other than to interject some sleaze and dirtiness into the film. The only other issue is the film triying to go for poignancy in nearly all the relationships between everyone and the melodramatic tone is quite draining overall since very little of it registers after it’s all said and done.
A solid and enjoyable zombie movie even if it has some drawbacks, “Call of the Undead” is a quite enjoyable take on the format that comes off nicely enough due to being a safe route to take for the country’s first steps into the style. Give it a shot mainly if you’re a fan of the genre or the creative crew.
