Versus

Some people are insane! I mean, what were you expecting? The English Patient? I for one love a good gorefest and awesome if its done out of Hollywood. The plot had holes, I guess, I can't really think of anything that really had me come out of the movie. If you rented or bought this and thought, "Hey, that couldn't have happened, like, oh my Gawd how fake!" Why would you watch a zombie/sci-fi movie to begin with? You did read the synopses right? The acting was good, watch the original undubbed one please before you blast the flick! The characters were priceless, I loved the "Charlie's Angels"-esquire stances the yakuza guys made! Tre cool. I loved the fighting as well, every ten minutes or so someone was getting the crap beat out of them. It was also very refreshing to not see so much wire-flying, the one part I can recall that did sort of do that was shot tightly so it didn't seem so exaggerated. I'm a chick and I LOVED how Prisonor KSC2-303 kept hitting the annoying chick over the head, classic! No out of nowhere love scenes here my good people! The "villian" was also top-notch. I thought the casting was great. Tak Sakaguchi, wow, baby don't be so mean! :P I can't wait to see him in more things or in the sequel. Please don't watch this if you're cynical or hard to please. ITS A ZOMBIE/GORE/SCI-FI INDIE FILM! Yeah just don't buy it, let someone else who appreciates such fineness get a copy.

*By the by, this review is based on "The Ultimate Versus" edition.

This movie actually turned out to be cooler than I expected. I really didn't know what to expect when I was first about to watch this. I only knew it had some zombies,and had something to do with a portal and reincarnation. Its also totally campy, very bloody and gory, and one of the more memorable characters in it. The guy who runs around and screams all the time is hilarious. The dialog is cheesy. It has a decent story to it. Its just a fun movie. The visuals will keep you glued by themselves. This is a very low budget movie, but just remember , if you go to watch it, have no expectations. This movie will make you say " What the F" more than make you think. There is also a nice shot at Matrix movies too. Pretty cool movie and I in no way expected the movie to end the way it did. I wonder if there is more to come?

You can't beat that combination, unless you add in ninjas, or samurai... or Godzilla, but zombies and yakuza alone make a very compelling film, even if it has no sensible plot.

The storyline is simple enough - prisoners escape, get double crossed, then find out they're in a "forest of resurrection" full of zombies that don't like yakuza very much. That's all you really need to know.

Sit back and relax as you watch hilarious gory and impossibly bad acting. The movie is based on its visual appeal alone, forget the plot and the characters, watch the fight scenes, the strange standoffs, bad monologues, and hideously bad acting.

There are parts, however, where the movie drags on a bit. Killing zombies, even though enormously awesome, does become monotonous after an extended period. But these lulls are few and far between them. The action definitely keeps you hooked for most of the film.

Overall? Great action film.

7/10

I hesitated long before I finally decided to see this movie. "Battle Royale" had been my last positive experience with Asian cinema and movies like "The Eye" and "Uzumaki" really turned me off. Besides, I was getting tired of martial arts and feared that "Versus" is going to be one long, boring opera of Kung Fu fighting. Thank God, the movie could prove me wrong. "Versus" is more a parody than anything else, but with really good fighting scenes. I compared the movie with "Evil Dead" in the headline, because obviously both movies play in the woods, feature zombies and don't lack humor. They have something else in common. Both flicks were made with little budget, which you don't see at all. The special effects, the actors and the directors in "Versus" are top noch. I can't point out enough, how much I appreciate the comedy aspect of the movie and how the makers managed to mix that comedy with action and story. The ending is a little controversial.

SPOILERS:

My explanation is that 99 years later, the good brother turned evil and the reincarnation of the villain is now good. If there's a deeper meaning behind that, then it may be that every man that is given power will abuse this power. The ending could also say that established things will eventually turn bad until they are knocked over by new and fresh ideas.

END OF SPOILERS & PHILOSOPHIC THOUGHTS.

The only bad thing I can say about the movie is that it could have been a little shorter. Also, the story lacked logic at times, but story is not what "Versus" is about. It's about fun and gore and, boy, you get both!

Boy, oh, boy. They don't make them like this anymore and boy, do I wish I had written this flick. This is a movie living and breathing (so to speak) cult following. "Versus" is a thrilling, fast and furious action-horror-comedy-martial arts actioner directed by Ryuhei Kitamara and features a bizarre and original plot line that's virtually nonexistent.

The irony is, even though it's original, the film spends very little time explaining its more complicated bits and gets great mileage out of the Japanese actors, none of whom have real names, other than two or three-word descriptions like the grungy, tough-talking anti-hero "Prisoner KSC2-303" or "The Girl" or "Yakuza Leader with Butterfly Knife." Real deep characters, huh?

The plot is simple, if confusing, and all seven minutes of it occur within the first few scenes: In Japan's "Forest of Resurrection," two escaped convicts are on their way to making a rendezvous with a group of fellow gangsters. A shoot-out occurs over a disagreement between KSC2 and the Yakuza leader regarding a kidnapped young woman in the trunk of his car - The Girl; one of the men is killed, and so is KSC2's buddy.

KSC2 and The Girl run off into the forest, but after he, and each of the gangsters put 50 bullets into the reanimated corpses of KSC2's buddy and the dead gangster. Soon, KSC2, The Girl, and the gangsters realize something is not right about the woods they had set up as a prearranged meeting spot, and it isn't long before they're all emptying clip after clip into the zombified corpses rising up from their shallow graves in the forest floor. (On a side note, I don't think any of the gangsters ever run out of ammunition.)

As it would turn out, the gangsters have been using the forest as a burial ground for their victims, and they're coming back to settle a score with their killers. Since this is the Forest of Resurrection, all the bodies of slain gangsters are rising from the dead and fighting against their living enemies. That's about all there is to the plot, and all you need to know.

This is a strange gem right here, folks. I don't think there's single production in Hollywood that could touch this movie in terms of style and subject matter. It looks fantastic, really giving the woods a life of its own (so to speak), and the mood of the film is effectively surreal. (It kind of reminds me of "The Evil Dead" in a few ways.) "Versus" ultimately plays out like a collision between every low-budget zombie movie, John Woo shoot-'em-up picture, and action movie we've ever seen. Now in Hollywood, ladies and gentlemen, we call that originality.

"Versus" is a skillful blend of each genre and it never loses sight of the main conflict between escaped convicts and gangsters; the zombies are merely a nuisance - who at first appear to be an interference with shadowy gangland activities. But as it would turn out, however, there's more to the story, and the Forest of Resurrection, as well as the zombies somehow figure into a plot that's best explained by the main villain of the picture, a stranger who I presume is The Man (since as I said before none of the characters have real names), who seeks The Girl to use her in his quest to achieve immortality, or something like that.

It's also pretty funny too. Much of the comedy in this movie arises from one panicky gangster member and two horribly disfigured police officers (whom I'm not sure are dead and resurrected or just badly injured) who have vowed to bring down the escaped convicts. And the corny one-liners (ever-present in the American dubbed version) will definitely get you laughing at its attempts to sound cool to our braindead audiences.

Even though "Verses" is not rated, it's extremely bloody with enough over-the-top gore to please any American gorehound or fan of zombie pictures. It's also got enough martial arts action and Woo-style gunplay to satisfy anyone who's gone into the film thinking this is a samurai picture (from looking at the DVD cover art).

"Versus" will definitely win on the cult circuit; whether it's ready to take on the American mainstream is a question that only time will answer. We'll just have to wait and see who the winner of that titanic battle will be...

7/10