Movie Melting Pot… ‘Versus’ (Japan, 2000)

Directed by Ryuhei Kitamura (Godzilla: Final Wars)… ‘Versus’ is a modern Japanese flavouring of the zombie flick, seasoned heavily with high-octane action and the Eastern zest of martial arts, wire-work and an eccentric style of physical comedy only found in Asian action-comedies. Upon the first viewing, the film doesn’t scream comedy, but I think a lot of the “humor” in the film is lost in the translation. Much of the humor will seem too edgy and overdone to most western audiences. Regardless of it’s “official” genre classification, I don’t weigh this awesome ass-kicking flick very heavily in the comedy arena. ‘Versus’ is most simply described as a two-hour adrenaline jolt of fights and chases.

Back Story: As the film proposes, there are 666 portals to the other side… be it Hell or an alternate dimension, the “other side” is not a very pleasant place to visit. The Forest of Resurrection is the 444th portal to the ominous other side, a forest in which the dead rise and walk again. For centuries, men have killed one another within this forest, creating a nearly endless supply of undead killers to recruit in fighting those of the living that dare enter the forest’s borders.

Two imprisoned convicts manage to escape into the forest, but when their arranged pickup arrives, tensions rise and one of the two convicts, known as prisoner KSC2-303 (Tak Sakaguchi), begins to have his doubts about the whole thing. The gang of thugs have kidnapped a woman and that pisses him off resulting in a standoff between KSC2-303 and the gangsters whose orders are to keep him alive. It soon becomes apparent that KSC2-303 is secretly more knowledgeable about the forest than he leads on… he’s also a far more dangerous person than the gangsters realized. During the standoff, KSC2-303 kills one of them only for him to rise from the dead and attack his former partners in crime.

KSC2-303 takes “the Girl” with him as they move to flea the forest and the gangsters, but the Girl has a secret of her own that slowly comes into play in the story. The Girl has the ability to sense things, feeling the presence of the living dead all around her. However, the Girl is a bigger part of the master plan than she or anyone else knows as the many zombies rise with the help of an ancient evil spirit that has returned to this realm, reincarnated as a yakuza boss, to claim his long sought-after prize. KSC2-303 and the Girl must not only survive the gun-loving gangsters and the difficult to kill undead menaces, they must overcome the wants of a force not so easily vanquished. The film culminates into an all-out battle between good and evil, a fight from ages past brought to the present.

Given the landscape by which this story takes place, shot entirely within the forest, the scenery is limited. ‘Versus’ is a film that plays mostly on it’s astounding visual flair and excitement. The movie is an action-packed hybrid of the zombie genre of George Romero combined with the bloody, often over-the-top action of directors like Takashi Miike. The fight choreography in ‘Versus’ is super-cool, featuring tons of close-up hand-to-hand martial arts, gun fights and in some cases even some knife and sword play. This movie is all about the editing and the filmmakers involved nailed that element, resulting in extreme-angle butt-kicking with lightning fast pace that maintains its choreographed detail.

‘Versus’ is a modern classic of the extreme genre fans, melding the world of old-school samurai films with the more modern graphically-violent yakuza films, then gene-spliced together with the ever-popular zombie genre to create a movie unlike anything you’ve ever scene. ‘Versus’ has developed into a massive cult classic and has a huge fan-base, creating a major career opportunity for Kitamura.

Kitamura is currently developing a follow-up to ‘Versus’ which he has stated it will be like [“what Evil Dead 2 was to Evil Dead1.” *] Kitamura recently finished ‘The Midnight Meat Train’, based on a story from Clive Barker’s The Books of Blood anthology. This is his first American-made film and, despite Lionsgate totally dropping the ball on promoting a major release for the film, it hasn’t turned Kitamura away from the idea of returning to make more American films.

[* source: bloody-disgusting.com]