Toronto International Film Festival to show Taiwanese zombie comedy

Toronto, Aug. 28 (CNA) Taiwanese director Wang I-fang's (王逸帆) first feature film, a zombie-themed horror comedy, will be shown in this year's downsized Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF), the Taipei Cultural Center in New York said in a statement Friday.

"Get the Hell Out," a dark comedy about a group of people fighting their way out amid a zombie outbreak in Taiwan's Legislature, is scheduled to have two screenings at the TIFF Bell Lightbox on Sept. 10 and be streamed online on Sept. 11, according to the festival's website.

Wang said in the statement that he was honored and excited because his film was selected in the festival's "Midnight Madness" section, which he had been aiming for.

"Wang choreographs this chaos with a breathless deployment of gory slapstick, satirical sing-alongs and hilarious, fourth-wall-shattering graphics, generating a formal silliness and elasticity akin to Stephen Chow's (周星馳) mid-'90s nonsense comedies," said the festival's introduction of the film on its website.

Compared to the 245 films shown in last year's festival, the TIFF only selected 50 for this year's downsized event, which will run between Sept. 10 and Sept. 19, with "physical screenings and drive-ins and digital screenings," organizers said.

"Get the Hell Out" was filmed last year in Kaohsiung, where several sets of the Legislative Yuan in Taipei were recreated and described as quite realistic by Legislator Lin Wei-chou (林為洲) during a press event held in the Legislature in mid-August.

It was released in Taiwan on Aug. 14 and is still playing in cinemas.

(By Hu Yu-li and Kay Liu) enditem/ls