Versus

Rating:
Summary: Looks Awful, Good Story
Review: A more accurate title for this film would have been "The Blair Matrix Project." It really brings up some serious issues and makes you think..."Could I have made this movie in my backyard with some friends when I was in highschool?" That being said if you can sit through the almost endless (and sometimes pointless) encounters of the main characters and make it to the final scene the movie becomes quite interesting.

Rating:
Summary: "10 skinny guys doing Kung Fu fighting in a haunted forest"
Review: "This movie is simply 2 hours of 10 skinny guys doing silly Kung Fu fighting in a haunted forrest."

Thus spake another reviewer. And it is. So why haven't you rented it yet? How can you resist a tag line like that?

There's more, though. For one thing, some girls go kung-fu, too. It's also got Matrix zombies with guns. And a crazy gangster in a sharp black suit. So watch it, why dontcha! It's still better than half the movies Hollywood will release in 2004!

Rating:
Summary: A RUN THROUGH A FOREST . . .
Review: That's what they should call this movie. Blaah . . I read so much good stuff about this movie. No one mentions that the background scenery doesn't change until the about the last 5 minutes. This is basically "Blair Witch" with martial arts in it. Go rent or buy some other movie . . All this movie is is people running through a forest. Then when they see eachother it's like " Hahaa!!! I found you! You must fight me real quick. . and then we will run again!!! Mwwahahaha!!!" Stupid movie. . Oh and the plot? Lmao . . it's kinda like there's one hamburger at the end of the forest and everyone is hungry . .try to imagine that lol

Rating:
Summary: Blood, gore, and a love story gone wrong...
Review: Overall this movie was excellent. It actually had a plot line that was understandable unlike movies like Juon and the Ring, which seem to never answer your questions. Within the first two minutes someone is cut in half and blood is spurting. I think blood was spurting pretty much throughout this movie. Characters were all very well defined, more so than any other asian flick I've seen. Fight scenes made the matrix look like a slow motion joke and crouching tiger hidden dragon look like superman. Plus... they look like anime, but in real life. I never thought people could pull it off, but they do. Not sure if it was the lighting the director used or what, but was quite cool. Messed up ending, which leaves a sequel.

Rating:
Summary: Eh.... I've seen worse
Review: Not a horrible movie, jumps around a bit and doesn't make much sense most of the time but not too horrible.
If you are looking for great stunts, awesome special effects, and Storm Riders type action... skip this movie, but if you want a run thru the jungle, kill all zombies type flick this isn't the worst of them.

Rating:
Summary: It aint the same ole, same ole.
Review: But it takes its cues from 'em. The reviewer (dude) who said this flick was not a combination of Reservoir Dogs and Evil Dead was right. But the influence of those and other films of their genre give this fun (although long in the middle) flick its heart and soul.
Kitamura has weaved together kung-fu, deadly zombies, decapitations, mutilations, some great bullet ballet, and plenty of humor, thrown in all on some very cliched criminal types, filmed it often at a frentic pace, and waited to see what would happen. Hey what happened was fun for all.
The only negative comes from a big exposition slow down a little over half-way. And boy does he slam on the breaks. But when we finally get back to the action it's a hoot, and its way over the top.
As usual the dubbing is only so good and detracts from what appear to be great scene chewing performances, but other than learning Japanese what a ya gonna do?? The commentary included here is funny at times but is very lacking in real information.
The quality is not bad.
Oh 0ne other thing, the ending had a twist a pretty good one. So enjoy.

Rating:
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:
Summary: loved it loved it loved it.
Review: this Japanese mobster movie takes place in an enchanted forest populated by gun-toting zombies and a 500-year-old evil Samurai wizard of DOOM. no, seriously. and it's great. imagine *Reservoir Dogs* meeting *Night of the Living Dead*--with lots of really kick-ass asian people wearing leather and carrying very big sharp things that go "swish."

i absolutely adored it.

Rating:
Summary: This is awful and extremely boring
Review: An incredibly boring awful movie. I regret having wasted $4.50 to rent it, based on its advertising hype.

Rating:
Summary: Horrible....Horrible....Horrible
Review: This movie is simply 2 hours of 10 skinny guys doing silly Kung Fu fighting in a haunted forrest. The worst thing about this movie is that there is absolutely no story!! I repeat, no story!! The viewer is thrown into a forest and watches as a few minor incidents lead to punching and kicking.

The zombies in the haunted forest are not even scary. They hardy attack the bad guys, the zombies main purpose is to be used as shooting targets for the bad guys.

I recommend you buy "The Returner" or "The One". Those are two excellent martial arts movies. Waaaaaay better than Versus.