"Witness A Battle No One Has Ever Seen!" |
Versus (2000) Directed by: Ryuhei Kitamura Approx. Running Time: 119 minutes Rating: Not Rated Listing on the A.K.A. Page: CLICK HERE A Second Opinion: Teleport City Buy it on DVD at: Amazon.com or Movies Unlimited My Rating: |
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Prisoner KSC2-303 - The only character to have a semblance of a name in this movie! He escapes from prison with the aid of the Yakuza and soon finds himself in a crazy world of reincarnation, resurrection, and kung-fu zombies! In the long tradition of anti-heroes, this guy is one of greatest ever! He destroys his evil opponents and gets the girl in the "end."
The Yakuza - A large group of thugs from the Japanese mafia who are clearly professional killers (with the exception of Runt). What was supposed to be just a simple job, turns into a fight for survival. All of them die (except for that damn Runt!) but they return as powerful zombie fighters. Prisoner 303 puts their bodies to rest permanently!
Hideo - The powerful zombie-master and villain of this movie (Hideo is the actor's name by the way). He plans to grow even more powerful by using the blood from Prisoner 303 and The Girl. In the end he is killed by 303 and has to wait a full 99 years to come back again.
The Girl - She was kidnapped by the Yakuza for Hideo and her blood is part of the essential key to unlocking some amazing supernatural power. She's also Prisoner 303's girl (and has been since 1500 A.D.! Now that's a long lasting relationship!).
The Two Cops - These morons are out to kill Prisoner KSC2-303 for escaping. Both are blown up for their stupidity.
The Horse With No Name - You know, the kind you ride through the desert on? Ok, ok, this is just a stupid joke I made, in hopes that you, my devoted reader, would laugh. I really hope it worked!
The Zombies - Due to the power within the Forest of Resurrection, anyone who dies comes back to life to kill the living! There seems to be no perfect way of killing these undead creatures either. First of all, they aren't harmless or slow. They can all fire a gun fairly well, and have some fighting skill. And secondly, a simple gunshot to the head doesn't do the trick! All of these are easily dispatched of by Prisoner 303 and the Yakuza, who all end up as kung-fu zombies! If these things ever invaded America we'd be screwed! Tony Todd, Ken Foree, and Tom Savini combined couldn't save us!
If you've managed to read my review for
Down To Hell instead of skipping straight to this,
you may have noticed that I said Versus, like its predecessor, is simplistic. Once
again Ryuhei Kitamura doesn't name his characters, and sets the entire movie in a forest. It's
cost efficient and also very effective, but unlike Down to Hell, Versus is full
of slick gore effects, and incredible fight choreography (which was done by Yuen Wo-Ping whose
work can also be seen in The Matrix Trilogy and Kill Bill Volume 1). Basically, Versus is a bigger, faster,
and better version of Down To Hell, with a reincarnation subplot tossed in. I'm not
trying to say that Down To Hell sucks in comparison, I'm just saying that it's a huge
step up for Ryuhei Kitamura. Before I begin to tell you about this movie though, I just have to
add that this too is a tough film to explain. But there's no harm in trying right?!
Versus starts off with some onscreen text that tells us: "There are 666 portals that connect
this world to the other side. These are concealed from all human beings. Somewhere in Japan exists
the 444th portal. The Forest of Resurrection." Said Forest is where the movie starts off, 500 years
in the past where a swordsman is doing battle with some samurai zombies! He deftly maneuvers and
slices them all to pieces with his Katana blade. Then he attacks a human opponent (who looks like
your typical evil Japanese sorcerer) but dies in the process. Back in present day Japan, in the
Forest of Resurrection, two escaped convicts are running through the woods (one of which is
Prisoner KSC2-303, played by Tak Sakaguchi). They meet up with a gang of thugs (Yakuza?)
by a dirt road and wait for their boss to arrive.
As chance would have it, the Yakuza thugs have kidnapped an extremely cute girl for their boss.
Prisoner 303 takes it upon himself to save her from the Yakuza's clutches. In the process, he
grabs the runt of the litter for a human shield while simultaneously killing one of the Yakuza
with Runt's gun (yes the small Japanese clone of John Leguizamo is henceforth Runt)!
kills one of the Yakuza. They all stare at the corpse in shock and then pull out their guns. As the Yakuza
have a stand-off with our anti-hero, the fallen Yakuza slowly rises and begins to attack his
former partners. They all unload a barrage of bullets into the zombie until it collapses. One of the
Yakuza then shoots Prisoner 303's fellow escapee, just to see if the same thing would happen.
The convict sits up moments later, only to be blown away. This gives 303 and the girl plenty of
time to escape.
The Yakuza go after them and split up to cover more ground. One of them manages to find Prisoner 303 (now decked out
in a leather coat and boots that he took from a corpse) and the girl which leads to a pretty
cool fight. In the meantime though, the other thugs walk blindly into zombie central. This was
probably the best scene in the move too. The three Yakuza are all back to back, grinning because
as well all know, zombies are rather easy to battle in large open places. But they (as well as myself)
are surprised once several zombies pull out guns and start firing! (I'm completely serious! Not only do these
zombies shoot guns, but they can fight too!) Prisoner 303 and his opponent hear the gunfire and
come running. They soon join in the zombie battle melee and gore and violence ensue!
Once the zombies are finished off, a switchblade wielding Yakuza squares off against
Prisoner 303, who escapes yet again. In the meantime, Runt has run off with the girl in tow.
303 knocks him out and saves the girl, while a mutiny takes place among the Yakuza. The scene-chewing Yakuza (Kenji Matsuda, whom my buddy Duane from B-Movie Central, calls "monkey boy")
decides to call the shots and go against his boss' orders by killing 303 and the girl. As the movie
continues, more characters are added into the mix (as are other subplots). This includes two cops that were
transporting 303. They are now hell bent on finding him and killing him. Then more Yakuza thugs arrive in
the Forest of Resurrection to give "monkey boy" some backup. Lastly, the movie's villain (Hideo Sakaki)
finally arrives.
Now as I said earlier, there's a whole subplot involving reincarnation. The bad guy who has just
shown up had slain our anti-hero, Prisoner 303, nearly 500 years ago in feudal Japan. And the girl
that was kidnapped by the Yakuza was also reincarnated. You see, said villain needs the blood
of the girl, and the reincarnated blood of 303. With all that blood, he plans on opening the 444th
portal to the other side (hell?) to gain supreme power! And all those Yakuza misfits we've seen
so far have also been reincarnated. What it all eventually boils down to, is a modern
retelling of the events that happened 500 years ago. (And since the bad guy has no name, I'll just
use the actor's first name from now on. Behold! The evil one shall be known as Hideo!)
Hideo's first plan is to build himself an army of kung-fu zombies. He tracks down "monkey boy"
and the gang, and murders them all after they try to kill him. They all become his kung-fu
zombie slaves afterwards, except for one girl who escapes, and Runt (yes that little bitch is
still alive.)! Those two
manage to team up and have a run-in with those cops I mentioned earlier. They try to steal the cops'
car (which by the way is already a stolen vehicle) and a fight breaks out. The girl is doing fine
on her own, but she dies because Runt accidentally shoots her. He then steals a huge
rifle/cannon from the cops (Which is very similar to the weapons Clarence Boddiker and his gang had in Robocop)
and runs away like the sniveling weasel he is.
Moving on now, Hideo finds his quarry and discovers that 303 doesn't remember his past life.
Seeing this as a perfect opportunity to win him over to the darkside, Hideo teleports himself and 303
to a remote spot in the woods. Prisoner 303 thinks that Hideo is crazy and tries to kick his ass.
Hideo is somewhat annoyed and kills 303 with a gunshot to his face! To tell you the truth, that shocked
me a bit. I truly didn't see that coming. But fear not, it's all part of Hideo's evil plot!
The girl finds Prisoner 303's body and uses her blood to revive him (he isn't resurrected until
later), but she is soon captured by the now zombified "monkey boy." (And if Ryuhei Kitamura or anyone
involved with this film complains about my choice of names, remember that it's your own fault!)
As the night divides the day, 303 is resurrected after a long flashback of his former life.
Apparently he had killed his girl (lopped her head clean off, much to the chagrin of feudal Hideo)
to stop Hideo's maniacal plot 500 years ago, before he himself was killed. 303 awakens and goes into full
badass mode for the remainder of the movie (he was only 75% badass beforehand). Yes folks, it's almost
time for the final battle. But first, Zombie 303 must messily dispatch of Hideo's undead goons, and
those two bumbling cops. (One of which dies in a hilarious scene. He tries pulling a Matrix move
to dodge a shot from that rifle/cannon and gets blown up in the process! So much for being 500
times faster than Mike Tyson!) So the time has finally come for our two super-powered main characters
to do battle. They teleport together to a deserted part of the forest and fight it out in a
beautifully choreographed swordfight.
Hideo is easily the more skilled of the two and is about to strike a mortal blow until... 303
instantaneously gains more power and makes a comeback! (That's why I always cheer for the
underdog!) But why does 303 gain more power all of a sudden?
Well, my theory is this. The girl is tied up
to a tree elsewhere in the forest, and the cut on her hand is still very fresh. She forces a few
drops from the wound, which hit the ground only seconds after some of 303's blood hit the ground.
So perhaps that super power that Hideo wanted was transferred to Prisoner 303?! Sure! Sounds good
to me! As I was saying, 303 makes a huge comeback and ultimately defeats Hideo. He then
rescues the girl and prepares to leave the Forest of Resurrection on a motorcycle (which was the property of a formerly
living Yakuza). She tells him that her blood and the forest brought him back to life, and that he
might die if he makes like a tree and leaves. (Sorry! I just couldn't resist it!)
Do you think
he cares? Of course not! The last shot we see is a first person POV camera shot of the motorcycle
speeding through a tunnel with a white light at the end of it. (I see the light!) As the motorcycle
exits the tunnel the screen goes white, and then fades to black. Now this is where
the movie should've ended. Instead we get an ending that feels tacked on and is just downright confusing. It seems
that each of the combatants have switched sides and battle it out 99 years later in a post-apocalyptic
future. I have so many questions about it but sadly no answers.
So there you have it: one of the greatest movies ever to be made in the zombie genre! The acting
is pretty good especially in regards to Tak Sakaguchi, who played his role as a badass
anti-hero perfectly. Hideo Sakaki was also good as Sakaguchi's arch-nemesis. He played the role
as a calm and calculated villain who could easily disguise his intentions. Then you have the
rest of the cast (Runt, "monkey boy," and the other Yakuza). They're all around mostly for comic
relief (and they provide plenty of dark humor), but Kenji Matsuda ("monkey boy") stands out from the rest. He clearly
had a fun time with his role but he goes overboard sometimes and can get quite annoying.
The fight choreography
and special effects in Versus are spectacular! However the movie's lengthy running time
really allows for too many slow spots. If the movie were cut down to at least 100 minutes, the
pacing would've been much smoother. Then
there's the finale in which Tak and Hideo fight in a post-apocalyptic setting. Hideo was clearly
the bad guy in the beginning, but it sort of seems like he's the good guy at the very end. Did the two
souls somehow switch bodies when they reincarnated or am I just missing something here? Another
negative thing about the movie is that Ryuhei took the simplicity of Down To Hell, and
tried to expand on it.
I have no problem with that at all since it's good to see a director trying
to improve a movie with more than just special effects (George Lucas, listening?!). But what his
efforts result in is a lot of unnecessary characters and subplots. (Hey, whatever happened to Runt?!) Despite that though, Versus
is worth watching and deserves a spot in any movie collection. Media Blasters has released three
different editions of Versus. One is just the R-Rated version,
the second is the director's cut, and the third is the a 2-Disc Collector's Edition (which is
the one you should definitely consider purchasing)! The Collector's Edition will have everything the Japanese disc has, but now you'll be able to understand it all thanks
to English dubbing and/or subtitles! (Plus the Special Edition contains the DIRECTOR'S CUT! Hell Yeah!) Recently,
Ryuhei Kitamura has re-edited Versus and added approximately ten minutes of new footage! This definitive version
of Kitamura's kung-fu zombiefest is not yet available on Region 1 DVD, but once it is, I'll post a link
to it here. (Note: Ultimate Versus is available on Region 3 discs and is easily accessible
online. If you have a region free DVD player, this is the version of the movie to get!)
Prisoner KSC2-303: "Is there any
party? Or you trying to promote hoodlums?"
(Reviewer's Note: Ummm...
what the hell is that supposed to mean?!)
Prisoner KSC2-303: "5 men on 1 girl, you must proud of yourself. Hey let her
go and take oil your wig."
Yakuza #1: "Shut the f*ck up!"
(Reviewer's Note: Does the
person who typed up the subtitles have any knowledge of the English language?)
Prisoner KSC2-303: "I'm a feminist."
(Reviewer's Note: Yes it's true. He is a feminist but unfortunately, he's spoken for ladies. Has been since 1500 A.D.)
The Girl: "Thanks for helping me."
Prisoner KSC2-303: "I didn't mean to help you. They just piss me off."
The Girl: "I was only trying to help."
Prisoner KSC2-303: "Help? I never lose."
Prisoner KSC2-303: "Don't touch my girl! F*ckin' asshole!"
Cop #1: "You can't hit me! I have 500 times faster reflexes than Mike Tyson!"
(Reviewer's Note: Not only did he not have faster reflexes than Mike
Tyson, but he didn't have a higher IQ either!)