DRW Zombrex: Dead Rising Sun


 * To add the movie to your XBox360 download queue, click here.

 is the low budget companion movie to Capcom's Dead Rising video game franchise. Directed by Capcom’s global head of research and development, Keiji Inafune, the movie is being released as a series of eight episodes. The movie is dubbed in English, as well as released with Italian, French and Spanish subtitles. After it pushed back the release date of Dead Rising 2, Capcom guaranteed episodes throughout August.

Plot
Rather than focus on characters from the Dead Rising games, Zombrex Dead Rising Sun is a side story, set in an alternate reality in which areas affected by outbreaks are strictly quarantined, and those living in the area are cordoned off from the rest of the country. The serial depicts the plight of a young handicapped Japanese boy named George and his older brother Shin as they seek shelter from the zombie hordes.

First through third episode
The first episode begins with a brief introduction from Inafune, warning viewers about the horror and violence in the movie.

The movie begins with a teenager being brutally beaten by a gang of thugs in an abandoned warehouse. He staggers from assailant to assailant, dazed and bloody, as his wheelchair-bound brother pleads with them to stop. The brutality of the scene has an even greater impact on the viewer because of Inafune's use of a first-person camera for the wheelchair-bound George.

The pair breaks out of the warehouse and run through a crowd of slow-moving zombies, the thugs in hot pursuit. Then the flashbacks begin.

Infune ditches the first-person view for the flashback scenes, showing our wheelchair-bound hero playing, what else, Dead Rising 2 as Shin rushes in to inform him that the dead are indeed rising, and they've got to get to a safe house.

The flashbacks are intertwined with the first-person present, following the brothers as they get turned away from several official safe houses and are forced to seek shelter in what seems like an abandoned warehouse. As they soon discover, it's become the haven for a violent gang of thugs. The leader of the thugs threatens his underlings with his pistol and telling his girlfriend that she's only there to give him head.

The thugs catch up with the brothers and Shin tells George to run and hide. In first person, the boy closes himself up inside four walls of boxes, as a gunshot rings out. The hero goes to check on his brother. He finds him lying on his side in a pool of blood, dead. In a flashback it is shown that the gang had sprung a trap.

Third episode documentary
Episode three includes a short documentary. Inafune explains that integrating the first-person viewpoint is his way of standing out from the crowd, making this more than just another zombie movie.

Production
Keiji Inafune reteamed with Dead Rising scenario editor Makoto Ikehara to create the film's story. The film was shot in Japan.

Release
Capcom plans to release each episode first on Xbox live, then a week later on the official Zombrex Site. The first three episodes were first available for download free on Xbox Live on August 4, 2010. The full 83-minute version will be shipped with the "Dead Rising 2" Collector's Edition.

Reception
Reception was mixed. Joystiq.com said the movie was "a little campy so far." Neoseeker wrote, "Reminiscent of all those Cantonese movies dubbed in crappy English...the first three episodes are available for your viewing (and laughing) pleasure via the Xbox 360 online network." On the other hand, Platformnation explained, "[there is a] old-style, campy horror film vibe from Zombrex — there’s definitely something to dig here."

In the most detailed review, Kotaku magazine wrote:
 * So far Zombrex Dead Rising Sun is an interesting if formulaic take on the zombie movie. The first-person viewpoint and restricted movement of the camera adds a great deal of tension to the story, but the bad voiceovers and obvious plot twists lessen the impact of the mechanic considerably...The horrible [cheesy American English voiceovers]...sound ridiculously out of place in Zombrex Dead Rising Sun....The zombies don't weigh heavily in these first three episodes...So far they are more an environmental hazard than anything else. They're heavy snowstorm or sinking ship that brings out the best and worst in humanity...[But it is still] a very adult movie.

Marketing
Faux syringes of the Zombrex serum were sent to the press to promote the film.