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VERSUS Advertisements promise “Free-fall Ultra-Violence Non-Stop Entertainment Action”, and that’s a tall order. But this is a pretty major ass-kickathon, one all zombie and action fans will want to see. Contains not one, not two, but three scenes where people get huge holes punched/shot through them and we get a nice shot of the crimson cavern within. Director Ryuhei Kitamura is definitely someone to keep an eye on. The plot, such as it is, takes place in a forest, when two inmates get broken out of prison and meet up with a choice collection of Yakuza thugs sent there by the big boss to hold them until he gets there. One has a cop’s cut-off hand in his cuffs. They know something is not quite right when they see a girl being held hostage, and the thugs kill one of the inmates. The one left is our hero, prisoner KCS2-303, and he is a badass. He escapes into the woods with the girl, a gun, and a thug hostage. Unfortunately for everybody, they are in the Forest of Resurrection, one of the 666 gates to hell. And anybody that is dead or dies soon comes back to life, as the thugs soon find out. Not only that, but the Yaks stumble into a field where they dump all the bodies of their victims, and boy, are there a lot of ‘em. Not interested in eating brains, just set on destruction. These zombies aren’t shuffling retards, either; they have guns and know how to use them! Why they were buried with their guns, and why they still work are questions only killjoys and reviewers need to ask. Some zombies have swords, too! Great 3-way battle ensues between the gangsters, our heroes, and the zombies. Total videogame-style battle action, my thumbs started to hurt after a while. Oh, yeah, the two asshole cops that the inmates escaped from are after them, one dragging his stump around, and the other one looking for people to fight. They shoot some poor schmuck for his car. A second group of yakuza assassins show up, dressed all badass in black leather, sunglasses and streaked hair. Everyone battles, dies, and rises to battle again. The hero is cool (Tak Sakaguchi), as is the main villain (Hideo Sasaki), but I really loved the over-the-top portrayal of the thug in the suit (no names used in the movie) by Kenji Matsuda. He is hyper, foppish, ready to whip out a switchblade at any moment for fun, and after he is dead, moves around like a frog or monkey on his belly, sticking his tongue out and making funny noises. Somewhat hard to follow storyline involving reincarnation and needing the heroes blood to open up the gates of hell, but who watches these kinds of movies for the plot, huh? Frenetic pace with lots of stunning visuals, old school style. No CGI. No sets, either, the filmmaker’s spent all their money on squibs and fake blood and gore. Nuttin’ wrong wit dat! Fast-paced acrobatic action, swirling cameras, speeding steadicams, all suggest a Raimi salute Hong Kong stylee, with the extra bit of perversity that the Japanese seem to inject into their flicks. And the fight choreographer is the great Yuen Wo-Ping, fight guru of the Matrix and many other HK flicks. Drum ‘n bass soundtrack works pretty well. Versus treats us to great wacky characters, purposely spoofing “ultra cool” Yakuza killer clichés as it revels in them. Feels like we’re missing some cultural back-story, like there’s more Japanese mythology being referenced than westerners will understand. But if ass-kickin’ is the universal language, then this movie has a huge vocabulary! At 119 minutes, it runs a bit long, and loses some impact it might have had with a leaner, meaner running time. But it’s an epic blood-soaked over-the-top gorefest, and it’s hard to argue with that. Contains: gratuitous laser sight on sword, ginzu fu, heads rolling (literally), man split down middle with blade, kung fu zombies, John Woo-esque gunmen pointing guns at each other Mexican standoff scene, blood, gunplay, swordplay, fisticuffs, and a samurai cut in half with torso sliding off hips as he watches. Did I mention blood? -Hysteric Eric
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