Versus (Director's Cut)
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Movie Reviews of Versus (Director's Cut)
Movie Review: Checklist for a good movie
Summary: 4 Stars
Prisoners - Check
Zombies - Check
Big Guns - Check
Gore - Check
Non Stop action - Check
Big Guns - Check
Lots of guns - Check
More guns - Check
Sorcerers - Check
Ok, simply put, gangsters dump bodies in a forest of resurrection. Bad guys get up, lots of shooting and then we get to the story. Good zombie, gangster, sorcerer flick.
Movie Review: great for a dubbed movie!
Summary: 4 Stars
I began to watch this DVD and up came japanese characters with the translation in subtitles below, and i thought, "this movie better not be all subtitles!"
You see kids, i'd rather have crappy dubbing than subtitles because with subtitles, you spend the whole movie reading it and not getting into the story at all!
Movie Review: Good film, but not spectacular!
Summary: 4 Stars
Well I only bought this film because of the action and Tak Sakaguchi. The action and special effects are phenomenal, however the English voice over actors are horrible actors, which puts a damper on the film itself. I recommend watching it with subtitles.Movie Review: A lot of mindless fun
Summary: 4 Stars
While this is a cheap movie, it does hav a lot of style. The action is very good and there is a lot of it. The movie seemed to go on a bit too long but that is really the only fault.Movie Review: Good, evil, and the undead
Summary: 3 Stars
Welcome to the Forest of Resurrection: the violentest place on Earth! Set in this wooded locale, Ryuhei Kitamura's "Versus" is a bizarre, yet strangely entertaining, two hours of camp that may well be destined for cult-classic status. More a pastiche of styles than a traditional horror or action movie, "Versus" combines constant ultra-violence with some outrageously hammy overacting, tons of humor that may or may not be intentional, and dozens of zombies that don't serve much of a purpose but look really cool. I can't say this is the best movie I've seen lately, but I can say without reservation I've never seen anything quite like it. Kitamura certainly can't be criticized for wasting any time getting to the meat of the story. "Versus" opens in the aforementioned forest, as two escaped criminals meet up with a gang of stylishly dressed yakuza thugs who have taken along a cute young woman whose role in the proceedings isn't immediately clear. The problems begin right away, as the characters start bickering and it quickly becomes clear that a couple of the yakuzas are a bit unbalanced (one guy looks like he could have a nervous breakdown any minute, and has practically descended into a feral state by the movie's halfway point). One of the yakuzas and one of the criminals are soon dispatched, and then things get really interesting when they suddenly come back to life and require a few dozen more bullets before they finally decide to stay dead.
After this tense standoff, the remaining prisoner (known only by his number, KSC2-303) and the woman flee into the woods, but things are just getting warmed up. A team of assassins arrive on the scene, and they're accompanied by the movie's nameless arch villain, a steely-glared guy in a leather jacket whose youthful looks belie his age (more on that later). Oh, and he just happens to be apparently invincible and able to punch through people with about as much effort as you or I might open a door. Providing comic relief is a pair of cops, one of whom is miffed about his missing hand, the other of whom keeps making outrageously hyperbolic comments about his training and skills. These guys also have their own motives, although what exactly they are is a bit unclear.
All this sets the stage for carnage on a grand scale, punctuated by some truly spectacular action sequences. While "Versus" may be a bit lacking in the area of plot development, there's no denying that Kitamura knows how to create a set piece. The movie's memorable moments range from a raging gun battle in a clearing with a small army of zombies, to a series of tightly filmed martial-arts showdowns, to the concluding epic swordfight between the two protagonists. Kitamura's tense, often frenetic directing style reminded me a lot of another, much better movie that I saw recently, namely John Woo's "The Killer." While "Versus" doesn't quite match up to that classic, the abundance of great action, combined with lots of blood and some stunning cinematography, still makes for an entertaining view.
Interestingly enough, "Versus" also reaches beyond the constraints of the action and horror genres to incorporate some mystical elements that might be out of place in an American movie but seem just right coming from Japan. It turns out that the showdown in the Forest of Resurrection is merely the continuation of a struggle that goes back at least 500 years, with the forces of good lined up on one side and those of evil on the other. The forest contains a portal to another dimension, and at stake is the villain's desire to enter the darkness on the other side. The players remain the same, owing to the miracle of reincarnation, so there are some very old scores to settle. And they will be settled before the movie ends.
By the time "Versus" does end, and in a rather surprising fashion at that, I was pretty drained, but I definitely got my money's worth. I've seen some pretty mixed reviews of this movie, and I must say that I myself was rather unimpressed the first time I watched it. I've given it a couple more viewings since then, and it seems to me that the movie is something of a grower, so you might want to give it some patience. Some of the weirder elements in "Versus" might put you off a little bit, but it does have its own unique charm. So check it out, if you've got the stomach for it.