For the past couple of weeks, Thailand has been ungoing an environmental disaster. Farmers in northern Thailand have been burning crops, causing massive air pollution. In Chiang Mai, where I currently am visiting, the smog was so bad that from my ninth floor balcony I could only see about a quarter of a mile away. Visibility has been so poor that flights were cancelled at Chiang Mai International Airport. The expected loss in tourism has been calculated to be nearly sixty million U.S. dollars. What has been the government’s response? A few days ago the blame for this massive pollution was placed on a chain of Korean barbeque restaurants according to the Bangkok Post.

The Thai horror comedy SARS Wars satirizes the Thai governments response to a major crisis. Based on what I’ve seen first hand, nothing is too exaggerated in this film.

The basic premise is that a new kind of flu has affected virtually every country except Thailand according to a government representative. An infected bug manages to fly into Thailand, biting an unsuspecting man who soon afterwards turns into a rabid zombie. Various residents of a Bangkok condo are bitten and infected. A cat is partially eaten leaving a zombie tail, which in turn is eaten by a snake that grows into a man-eating monster bigger than the title reptile of Anaconda.

A group of inept kidnappers and their victim, a plucky high school girl and her rescuer are also trapped in the condo with what turn out to be hundreds of zombies. The zombies are dispatched with guns and swords, with heads and other body parts shot or cut off. Think of George Romero’s zombie films with their social commentary combined with the anime inspired martial arts antics of Quentin Tarantino’s Kill Bill, plus a bunch of jokes in delirious bad taste and you have some idea of SARS Wars.

The government representative shows up at the condo with the Army, declaring that they have a cure for the zombie flu. A reporter groans, “Oh no! Made in Thailand”. Away from the press, the representative tells the soldiers to kill everyone in the condo. A beautiful scientist, Dr. Lena, shows up, claiming she has a cure that will actually work. The government agent wonders if it be no more successful than Dr. Lena’s previous cures. As it turns out, Dr. Lena has to encounter several zombies before finding which cure actually works.

Even when they are not made for laughs, zombie movies can be pretty funny. SARS Wars has moments when the humor ranges from the silly to the outright dumb, but the pace of the film never lets up from the animated credits to the less than optimistic conclusion. Just keep in mind in watching the spoof of the Thai government that the truth is not too far removed from this fiction.

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