Versus is a movie that defies the odds- what odds for sure I don't know- and cements its place as one of those cult films you hear from time to time, but then when you see it you understand the hype. It's so excessively violent and against the grain of anything meant to be taken an iota seriously that it welcomes it being as much a comedy as a horror film. I'm not totally sure that's what the filmmakers intended, but they've got Versus in that same cross-hairs I found a flick like Riki-Oh to be in, where violence is abstracted completely from reality, despite the heap-loads of blood meant, supposedly, to be realistic. There's nothing realistic about Versus, as it's a supernatural wild-card of sorts that combines zombies and yakuza in one package tinted with some possible Japanese folklore. The director Ryuhei Kitamura is very aware of how his camera can move around in an action scene- perhaps dangerously close on too aware- and makes his style hyper-kinetic but never annoying or too boring. While he lacks a real polish in shooting dialog scenes (jiggly hand-held camera, already with the dubbing that comes from seeing it on TV, never a good idea), Kitamura is a born and bred director of cartoonishly gory action scenes, where body parts get severed like it's breathing, and there's so many guns on display, and so many bullets fired, and so many swords clanged and clashed, and a good share of hearts ripped out and heads decapitated (some of said head's faces that give meaningful glances before being knocked dead), one doesn't want it to stop after a while.
Even the dialog sometimes gets very big enjoyment, if not through the main characters (the lead guy, who is an amnesiac who's soul dates back to that of the villain, a sorcerer who after conjuring hundreds of zombies is looking for blood to make him somehow immortal in the Forest of Resurrection), then through supporting ones. There's the typical wormy guy who's part of the yakuza, but goes through the movie scared out of his wits and with a face of red blood; you might think that would make him more of a bad-ass, but not so, not against his female adversary anyway. There's also the best side character, an FBI agent from Yellowstone National Park (which may or may not be in Canada), who also claims to be five times stronger than Mike Tyson. It's a good thing that characters like these, and the villain to an extent, go for the absurd, because it's a lot to swallow, a lot of it hard to follow or without much consequence anyway, in terms of the actual story. It might appeal to die-hard fans or even to those of video games to which Versus has gone on to influence, but it's not story that should be of major concern here, not when the seeming romance between female spirit and lunk-head with a past life is meant to be taken seriously and when the yakuza who early on seems like the true villain turns soon into a zombie toad.
No, Versus is best as one thing and one thing alone- pure, hilarious adrenaline. Although Kitamura's work ratchets the tension, it's never a tension that mounts steadily; his characters are too lackadaisical in the midst of zombies circling around them to load their weapons to really earn that tension. It's when the s*** goes down and suddenly attitude gets put to the test with equaled skills as fighters and shooters. It all adds up to being a great guilty pleasure, one where the feeling of admiration and kicking yourself silly over it all comes also with a feeling of 'is this really worth it, this trashy stuff'. But as trash, when it comes down to it, could be a lot worse, or boring. Versus is the kind of disposable malarkey that would be sweet to see again at 3 in the morning, staying up all the way to the end, which for some reason or another skips ahead to "99 Years Later"! 7.5/10
Even the dialog sometimes gets very big enjoyment, if not through the main characters (the lead guy, who is an amnesiac who's soul dates back to that of the villain, a sorcerer who after conjuring hundreds of zombies is looking for blood to make him somehow immortal in the Forest of Resurrection), then through supporting ones. There's the typical wormy guy who's part of the yakuza, but goes through the movie scared out of his wits and with a face of red blood; you might think that would make him more of a bad-ass, but not so, not against his female adversary anyway. There's also the best side character, an FBI agent from Yellowstone National Park (which may or may not be in Canada), who also claims to be five times stronger than Mike Tyson. It's a good thing that characters like these, and the villain to an extent, go for the absurd, because it's a lot to swallow, a lot of it hard to follow or without much consequence anyway, in terms of the actual story. It might appeal to die-hard fans or even to those of video games to which Versus has gone on to influence, but it's not story that should be of major concern here, not when the seeming romance between female spirit and lunk-head with a past life is meant to be taken seriously and when the yakuza who early on seems like the true villain turns soon into a zombie toad.
No, Versus is best as one thing and one thing alone- pure, hilarious adrenaline. Although Kitamura's work ratchets the tension, it's never a tension that mounts steadily; his characters are too lackadaisical in the midst of zombies circling around them to load their weapons to really earn that tension. It's when the s*** goes down and suddenly attitude gets put to the test with equaled skills as fighters and shooters. It all adds up to being a great guilty pleasure, one where the feeling of admiration and kicking yourself silly over it all comes also with a feeling of 'is this really worth it, this trashy stuff'. But as trash, when it comes down to it, could be a lot worse, or boring. Versus is the kind of disposable malarkey that would be sweet to see again at 3 in the morning, staying up all the way to the end, which for some reason or another skips ahead to "99 Years Later"! 7.5/10