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Versus (Special Edition)

Versus (Special Edition)

List Price: $34.95
Your Price: $27.96
Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Just plain old fun and cool!
Review: I didn't know what to think of this movie once it started. I was drooling over the slow motion and camera angles because they made everything seem so cool! Once any action starts, great editing, cool shots, plenty of violence, and good special effects all come together to make a really cool movie. The action isn't constant throughout the movie, but it comes and goes enough that anyone just watching it for the action wouldn't get bored. The dubbing isn't too bad, although sometimes I think it gets a little corny here and there. I definatley recommend this movie to anyone who likes action as much as I do, likes movies with zombies, or just likes movies with that 'cool' feeling to them. I loved it!

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Slick Flick
Review: This is a pretty slick zombie flick. What it lacks in substance it makes up for in style. The actors perform well considering the plot is a little weak. It seemed like all they did was walk and talk in circles. These guys also never heard of keeping the guns of the people they bury. Besides those minor points this is a great movie full of frantic action and comedy. The DVD is crystal clear with nice 5.1 sound for Japanese with subtitles. There's not a whole lot of extras on the directors cut but it's still worth the purchase. This is a must own for Zombie fans.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Pulp Fiction meets Night of the Living Dead with swords
Review: This movie is one part Pulp Fiction, one part Blair Witch Project, one part Jackie Chan styled kung-fu funny movie, one part Night of the Living Dead, one part Dead Alive, one part Seven Samurais, one part anime and one part cheese. What does all this add up to? A totally unique movie.
Versus is all of the above mentioned rolled up into one twisted movie. The action scenes are good. They have an anime feel to them but the actors execute them with a Pulp Fiction sense of cool. Lots of gun play, there had to be over 1000 rounds fired in the first half. The sword fighting is really good. Very fast paced and gory.
At times the acting is a little cheesy. The director is really fond of long dramatic pauses. A little too long for me. He must have gone to the William Shatner School of Film.
The plot is weird and kind of hard to explain. Guy busts out of prison. Meets up with the Yakuza who have kidnapped some random girl. While waiting for "The Boss" to show up, the guy gets angry with the Yakuza, kills one of them. Guy grabs girl and the chase is on. And once "The Boss" (a 500 hundred year old mystic that kicks serious butt) shows up, the action really gets going.
This movie is worth buying. But buy the Director's cut. The Special Edition doesn't really offer enough to warrant the extra ... dollars.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Dissapointment
Review: I bought the Special Edition, as it said it has DTS 5.1. Well it doesn't. The SE packaging simple. The extra disc is in a lose paper satchel.

With all he hype, I expected a great movie. It was ok, watchable. But definaltley not worth the extra 10USD for the SE.

The story is simplistic, and I was dissapointed by this film. But everyone has their own opinion.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Unpredictable fun!
Review: This movie was one of the best I've seen in a long time...
A bland mix of unlikely comedy, martial arts, yakuza-esque gangsters, gore and zombies...
Great acting, fighting sequences, and a great story line with alot of unpredictable moments that seem to pop out of nowhere..
Great characters...great cast!
A must have!

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Yakuza Zombie Kung Fu Madness... Happy Day
Review: Wow! Talk about madness. This movie is one of the wildest ride's you'll ever take. But, don't listen to my hype or anyone elses... discover this movie for yourself. This is a nothing-barred zombie flic that really entertains. Some say it's too long, but I say you really can't have too much of a good thing. It acutally has a pretty good story, too, though the performances are as wooden as one would expect from the genre. But that aspect adds only to the wonderful dark humor present throughout the spewing blood, relentless zombies, and unlimited ammo. Not for the weak of stomache or heart, Versus will please just about anyone looking for a light-hearted, gore-heavy, relentlessly fun movie. Media Blasters has gone all out on this Special Edition -- great transfer, great special features (especially the commentaries and making of)... Don't miss this great package of one of the world's best B-movies!!

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Immortal samurais vs. Yakuza zombies!!!
Review: If this film could be summarized in one sentence, it would be "Immortal samurais vs. Yakuza zombies". The film is about a convict that escapes into the woods with the help of some Japanese gangsters. The gangsters also bring along with them a kidnapped girl whom the convict feels compelled to protect. The two escape into the forest and are pursued by the gangsters, who need to keep custody of the two at the request of their client. What the gangsters don't know is that they are in the "Forest of Resurrection", where the dead come back to life and that their client is actually an evil priest who needs the convict and the girl to open a gate to Hell, as they are reincarnations of a magical princess and her samurai protector. Also in the picture are the Yakuza reinforcements and two cops whom I affectionately refer to as "The Fighter" and "Stumpy". The film is all intense martial arts action and never slows down except to deliver the details of the plot. The film was also made with a shoestring budget but still surpasses most of the action junk made in the US as it relies on a great plot and great action with real actors performing real stunts and martial arts.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: cant get enough.
Review: just really a good zombie action film with good acting and gore. a must see.....

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Good, evil, and the undead
Review: 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.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Very Cool
Review: I wanna open by saying that I was torn regarding the star rating. I'd say this is a 5 star action movie, but only a 4 star movie overall. And since it's Kcin's policy to give just about everything 5 stars, I went with the 5 star rating.

I first heard about this movie some time ago, and I can't help but wonder why I didn't see it sooner. The plot synopsis alone seemed a virtual guarantee that it would be entertaining, whether or not it was good or bad. It turned out remarkably well considering it had absolutely no budget. Thus, production values suffer, and the acting is frequently a bit amateurish. (but still generally fairly appealing) But if you are even looking at this film you probably aren't the sort who can't live with the natural concessions that come with a low-budget films, and this probably won't bother you too much.

The Evil Dead is the film that seems to come up the most when discussing this movie. This is a bit confusing and deceptive, as although I would be absolutely shocked if the makers of this film weren't highly familiar with Raimi's ouevre, it's primarily just a modern action-martial arts film. Which naturally leads to the question, is the action any good? Personally, I thought it was thoroughly entertaining, from beginning to end. It's got a great volume of action, and mixes up the styles, starting with gun violence and zombies moving to hand to hand fighting concluding with sword fighting. They do it all well, though I like the hand to hand fighting best.(The sword fight at the end is quite sweet as well, though it's hurt a bit by the use of wacky future swords.) Also, although they use some interesting visual and editing styles in the film, they don't over do it on the action scenes and actually let us see what's going on. The action here probably isn't all that different from what you've seen in a lots of the movies, though you probably haven't seen all this type of action in a single movie before, which is worth something. It's got lots of frequently silly and exaggerated gore as well, which makes the already odd film all the more surreal. This once again reveals the low budget, but it seems as if they wouldn't have wanted more realistic gore anyway, even if they could afford it, so it works out alright. The zombies are perhaps a bit primitive, but I really like 'em, particuarly the samurai zombies from the opening scene. Too bad they didn't bring the regular zombies back later in the film, but oh well.

Critic's of this film frequently say something like, 'I don't know how anyone could take this movie seriously'. Well, I gotta tell you, I don't think you're really supposed to take this all that seriously. It's not self-parody, but it's got a ton of conventional humor, along with some gore-related humor.(which is always a dead give away that a film isn't all that serious) Surprisingly, most of the humor comes off well. The stuff with 2 police officers is generally pretty good, albeit not all that varied. Panicky Guy and Crazy Yakuza guy are both fairly entertaining as well, though I can't tell how seriously we are supposed to take the latter. He's still amusingly overdone, whether it's intentional or not. The protagonist is merely okay. He doesn't have much personality, but I don't really care. The main villain is better. He doesn't have much personality either, but he's real cool, to put it vaguely.

Even the non-action scenes are passably interesting. They never go on for too long with out having any fighting, so they at least don't get in the way. There's no dialogue I'm gonna be quoting or reflecting on anytime soon, but it moves the plot along anyway, and, as I said before, never really bored me. The only time they falter seriously is in the scene where they introduce the Yakuza guys. It's trying too hard to be cool and they can't pull it off, so it just comes off pretty cheesy. This tendency to overdo it comes up every once in a while, adding packets of cheese infrequently throughout the film, but as I said before, it's not all that serious anyway, so it doesn't disrupt the mood too much.

Well, this review is pretty crappy so I better wrap it up. In summary, it's got a low budget, lots of cool violence, zombies and martial arts, is pretty funny at times and really never gets boring, although it isn't much for character development or plot and is occasionally a bit cheesy. What can I say, I liked it. A lot.


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