If you’ll accept Sammo Hung (who grew up with JC) instead of Jackie Chan, and vampires instead of zombies, then you’re in luck!
Fast forward to about 1:35 or so, or be prepared to be completely baffled by the contextless goofiness that I’m unprepared to explain beforehand.
It doesn’t look much like a vampire, but I found the jerky way that thing moves with the primitive special effects to be quite disturbing. Reminiscent of the Weeping Angels in Doctor Who.
Hey, it was 1980. At the ass end of The Shaw Brothers era. And the vampire was stiff because of rigor mortis.
But you’re not going to explain why throwing eggs inhibits vampire resurrection?
Chicken eggs, specifically. Unfortunately there are some duck eggs in there. That’s when hijinks ensue. Some witch or something told him to do it. Look, it’s been probably 25 yrs since I’ve seen it. It’s a goofy movie and doesn’t take itself too seriously.
What martial art is going to help me if I’m fighting against a horde of zombies anyway? In such a situation, my best bet is to find the thinnest part of the horde and make a break for it. A martial art with an emphasis on strikes such as karate, boxing, or taekwondo will prove largely ineffective as I cannot inflict pain upon my foe and bone crushing blows to the skull are more likely to result in my bones being the ones crushed. If I am knocked to the ground, well, like I said, as a wrestler I’m experienced at escaping. But if I’m surrounded my a horde wrestling isn’t likely to be all that useful. I don’t think any martial art would be effective in such a situation.
Has any investigation of zombies, in fact or fiction, questioned whether there’s anything so bad about becoming a zombie (or vampire, for that matter)? There seems to be an axiomatic assumption that being a zombie is a seriously undesirable condition – but does anybody know?
ETA:
See, for example, this observation seems to suggest that being a zombie has some advantages.
Richard Matheson’s I Am Legend.
The last (as far as he knows) non-vampire on Earth discovers that the vampires (seemlingly living-dead victims of a brutal pandemic plague) aren’t the brutish bloodsucking monsters he thought they were. They have a society and have come to regard him as the brutish monster.
Given the frequent apocalyptic outcome to zombie outbreaks, the R0 for zombie virus is astronomical. Food sources just keep turning into more zombies. So zombies are condemned to a state of perpetual malnutrition. Maslow’s hierarchy of needs tells us that zombies cannot live happy and fulfilled lives, at least not until zombie researchers develop Impossible Brains made from plant material.
Zombies are generally non-sentient. I’d consider that a drawback.
Since zombies are non-factual, let’s move this to IMHO (from FQ).
That’s what the skeptic always says just before a zombie eats their brains.
If I’m wrong, I’ll just head down to the Winchester for a nice cold pint and wait for it all to blow over.
I’m thinking aikido. It’s entirely about throws and redirection of your enemy’s momentum. As an actual, practical martial art, it sucks against a real, thinking opponent, but the sort of mindless lunging that zombies are typically displayed utilizing is actually the ideal adversary for the techniques of the art.
And that’s the fundamental truth of this exercise. The prohibition against having weapons pretty much makes all martial arts equal, and by equal, I mean “mostly useless”. The best part of having such training is that you’d be less likely to freeze up when first confronted. Early, effective action to avoid the horde as much as possible would be the best thing to do.
In thinking about this last night, I thought, Martial Arts probably isn’t the best training for this. Learning how to be a ball carrier in American Football or rugby probably would be the best thing. Think about it: when you have the ball, you’re the one person that all the players on the other team are looking to bring down, and they’ll work as a group to do that. The first one or two to get close to you and force you to swerve and/or slow down will slow you down just enough that players 3, 4, 5 can get better hits, take you to the ground, and then let all the other players land on top of you to finish you off.
A guy who can avoid all those players to run the length of the field for a touchdown would probably be the best (unarmed, at least) anti-zombie “fighter”.
This has always been a problem for any “Things that hunt humans want to take over the world” story. I’m currently re-watching “The Strain” (on Disney+, which really seems off-brand), and that’s the part that really stands out.
In any predator-prey relationship, you need to have a lot more of the prey population to support the predator population, or the prey gets wiped out pretty quickly. Think of the size of a pride of lions or a pack of wolves vs. the size of a herd of wildebeasts or bison. If Vampires or zombies ever did convert even 25% of the human population, the remaining 75% would be eaten as food in short order.
Now, I don’t expect decent long-term planning from zombies, but I expect better from Vampires.
Oh, man, does that make me a Monster Racist?!?
At least werewolves only have to hunt a few nights of the month.
If they are the slow type, I’d suggest fast walking away. None of the martial arts I’ve studied would be very effective against a zombie without a weapon, so, walk quickly away and pick up a weapon is the best suggestion. A spear or anything that keeps the zombies at arm’s length. I wouldn’t even want to get to sword’s length for fear that cutting into a zombie (and it would have to be a decapitation strike) would cause infected blood to hit me (let alone the whole bitting me thingy).
Martial arts are effective against humans because they use pain and leverage against the opponent. If neither of those things works, then it would be less than useless against a zombie…just wasted energy for no benefit.
The key question is… WWCND?
Any blow that doesn’t cause structural damage to the skeleton is basically worthless. I don’t care how “undead” you are, if you have a broken thigh bone, you’re not standing and walking in any kind of efficient manner.
The problem with this is, without weapons, breaking a big bone like that is really difficult, and any blow you make that can break someone else’s bones also has a good chance of breaking your bones too. And since you have to break a lot of legs in this scenario, it’s a near certainly that you’ll break yourself too, eventually. In a Zombie apocalypse, a broken foot is probably a death sentence.
Taking out their knees would be safer, but it would probably be less effective than an actual broken bone.
That’s true enough, but would it be worth the risk? To me, the answer is no. I mean, sure…could I break a zombie’s knee? Certainly, I could. But any such attack risks injury to the attacker, and getting that close means there is a risk of infection or maybe a bite. All to basically disable a zombie and make it crawl. But if there are 10 of them? 100? What good is that, really?
Basically, if I had no choice I’d try that, but if I could walk or run away, I’d do that and look for a weapon…preferable a gun, but at a minimum, a staff or spear would be my choice.