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."

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!)