Versus (Director's Cut)
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Movie Reviews of Versus (Director's Cut)
Movie Review: Wish list
Summary: 5 Stars
This was on my son's X-mas list, so I got it for him. He was excited to receive it. Thanks!Movie Review: MASTERPIECE
Summary: 5 Stars
I have VERSUS 2 Disc Set Special Edition 5.1 AC3,A MUST SEE :)Movie Review: One versus another
Summary: 4 Stars
Zombies. Escaped convicts. Mobsters. An ancient battle between two men. And a forest that seemingly grants eternal life... one way or another.
More questions than answers are raised in the oblique, shifting storyline of the cult hit "Versus," since director Ryûhei Kitamura seems intent on winding eerie, bizarre plot twists all around the seemingly simple plot. It has plenty of gore, fighting and a brilliant debut performance by Tak Sakaguchi -- as well as a timeless battle between good and evil that apparently lasts throughout multiple reincarnated lives. And we're not quite sure which is which.
According to the movie, there are 666 portals concealed in this world, which connect to the "other side." One of these is in Japan, called the Forest of Resurrection -- which apparently is connected to a long ago priest and samurai's fight.
Present day: Prisoner KSC2-303 (Sakaguchi) and his fellow escapee are met near the Forest by a gang of mobsters, but the already-tense atmosphere rapidly degenerates into a bloody war. And then dead bodies start getting up and savagely attacking people. The prisoner escapes with a mysterious girl (Chieko Misaka) whom the mobsters had been ordered to bring there -- he's compelled to protect her, and she seems strangely familiar to him.
The mobsters pursue the girl and the prisoner into the Forest, intending to kill them both -- but the prisoner and their crazy leader both cause even more deaths... and more gun-toting bloodthirsty zombies. So what exactly is going on here? Apparently a neverending battle throughout the centuries in this very Forest, over a young woman with a mysterious power -- and it brings Prisoner KSC2-303 up against an ancient enemy (Hideo Sakaki) whom he's fought in endless prior incarnations.
"Versus" is one of those movies you should watch at least twice -- a lot of its cryptic twists and eerie explanations fly over your head on the first viewing, and you're likely to not really understand the underlying plot. While it's a cool horror/action flick on the surface, it becomes even more than that as the story of the Man versus the Prisoner is slowly unpeeled like the layers of an onion. Flashbacks, hints of familiarity, and a brilliant twist ending that turns everything upside down.
If there's a problem with "Versus," it's that many of the questions raised are left unanswered -- while some are best left to the imagination, others are just headscratchers.
And Ryûhei Kitamura does a great job directing, with lots of gritty action, circling cameras and sharp jagged cuts from down on the ground. He also liberally slathers the entire movie in vast gushers of blood, dismembered body parts (Sakaguchi bisects a guy in the first scene), and savage fights with guns, swords and fists.Tak Sakaguchi spins through the movie with savage grace like a blood-spattered ballet dancer, and he manages to make constant mayhem and destruction look easy and uncomplicated.
And Kitamura gives the whole movie a certain gruesome sense of humor -- there's a knife-swinging mobster who is absolutely cackling-bugnuts, and the zombies produce plenty of over-the-top gore. And Sakaguchi has a brilliantly tongue-in-cheek scene where he strips off a dead man's clothes, and poses coolly in a long sweeping leather coat (while the girl tells him, "You're crazy!").
This was only Sakaguchi's first movie role, but the gorgeous guy handles it beautifully -- he's all cool, sharp-eyed intensity, and manages to hint that there's something strange underneath the callous criminal exterior. Sakaki has an equally dangerous, lean vibe as the mysterious Man who serves as the prisoner's counterpart, and Misaka holds her own as a psychic damsel who is trying to stay afloat in a situation where nobody can be fully trusted.
"Versus" is a brilliantly layered, twisting tale with plenty of gore, dismemberment and razor-sharp action scenes -- and if it didn't leave some of its questions unanswered, it would be the perfect cult flick. Definitely catch this one.
Movie Review: Ryuhei Kitamura: Sultan of Samurai Splatter
Summary: 4 Stars
Versus is another great entry in a slew of mind-blowing horror films to have come out of Japan in the last few years. Versus wallows in excess with weird acting, overly long swordfights, 1000+ rounds of gunplay, Sam Raimi-style shifting camerawork and buckets of exaggerated stomach-churning gore. This film reminded me most of Peter Jackson's early films, the cheap look of "Bad Taste" combined with the insane splatter of "Dead Alive".The story focuses on prisoner#KCS2-303 who has just escaped prison thanks to some unexpected help from the Japanese Yakuza. The prisoner soon finds out that the Yakuza's intent is to deliver him and a kidnapped girl to a client. The client who paid the Yakuza to do the deed is a psychotic priest who needs both of them in order to open up a portal to "the other side"(the girl and the prisoner are reincarnations of a mystical princess and her samurai protector, you see). In one blood-soaked sequence the convict and the girl manage to escape the Yakuza and flee into a nearby forest, which is "The Forest of Ressurection", one of the world's 666 portals to "the other side". The forest of resurrection also happens to be crawling with Zombies and with the Yakuza hot on the trail of the escaped girl and the prisoner the bloodbath begins.
But forget about the plot. Versus' intent is not to tell a story but instead to show off scenes of ultra-violent excess and for that reason alone anyone ought to stay away from the R-rated version. I don't see why anyone that's into films like these would have interest in a censored version anyways. The uncut version contains endless graphic-to-the-core scenes of arterial sprayings, eyeball gougings, head choppings and exploding brains galore. The film also has that strangely appealing look of a self-financed movie filmed on weekends with an 8mm camera by a bunch of friends with a little bit too much time on their hands (a la Evil Dead/Bad Taste).
My only minor complaints about Versus are the at times too ridiculous to ignore dialogue and its length. I feel this film would definitely have sustained my interest better had it been trimmed by 20 minutes or so, its 2-hour length a bit too long for such a simplistic premise.
If anything Versus ought to be watched to enjoy the delicious performance of the prisoner (played by Tak Sakaguchi), a Neo from the Matrix look-alike whose ability to drop corny lines...and look cool in black leather is beyond reproach. His performance is one of many things to like about this Japanese splatterfest which serves as one of the better ideas for a party film that I've ever seen. Invite a few friends over, pop this baby in and watch their jaws drop to the floor in wonder, disgust and amazement.
Movie Review: Camp Chinese Classic!!!
Summary: 4 Stars
It's hard to describe VERSUS in a matter of Hollywood (or American) terms: think of it as Sam Peckingpah directing THE EVIL DEAD meets CROUCHING TIGER HIDDEN DRAGON starring a virile Bruce Lee -- in place of the legendary Bruce Campbell -- but re-envisioning the story with mythologic, Biblical, punk, and gangster overtones.Once the viewer figures out what's going on, the film plays out its light wonderful, high spirited, blood-filled camp: three souls, all quasi-immortal, continue to meet reincarnated versions of themselves for combat-bloody-combat within the Forest of Resurrection, only one of 666 Portals on the Temporal Plane located on the planet Earth. Inside the Forrest, no one can die without facing re-invigoration as a gun-toting, sword-swinging zombie ... except for our three nameless principles who can't seem to avoid running into one another. (For all its foibles, "zombiehood" never looked so aerobic.)
VERSUS is filled with dazzling camerawork, and Director Ryuhei Kitamura achieves great mileage out of quick shots of incredibly energetic gun and swordplay. The make-up work is exemplary; when comical, it's comical, and when serious, it's serious. The actors are all very much at ease in what seems consistently to be moments of utter absurdity ... but, rest assured, it all makes sense in its own sort of violent, cosmic way.
Ultimately, the story is far more about the pursuit of inevitability than it is anything else. To search for greater meaning in a film filled with comic moments so bloody that you cringe is pure folly. Regardless, Kitamura does an admirable job keeping the action at a frenetic pace once all Hell breaks loose, and it doesn't let up until the epic conclusion ... followed by one epic epilogue that still keeps the viewer guessing.
Possibly dismissing as little more than just kung-fu fighting immortals of death, VERSUS presents a complex woven series of events that seemingly -- for all intents and purposes -- must play out again every 99 years (or so) within the Forrest of Resurrection in order for humankind -- or, at least, the lives of these nameless characters -- to maintain a meaningful balance.
VERSUS is great flick for budding film students, Asian film buffs, or midnight matinees.
THE VIDEO QUALITY: It's the reason for the four stars and not five. It's not completely distasteful, but it appears as it a fifth-generation video copy. At times early in the film, the images are extraordinarily grainy (ala THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT), and, while they do improve at times during the final third of the film, ultimately they never rise to the level of a respectable digital transfer.