User reviews

From the get-go, you'll know that this is a film that relies almost solely on its style and its visual slickness. Low budget in the good sense, Versus resembles early Sam Raimi or Peter Jackson works (Bad Taste springs primarily to mind). It combines good-humored gore with Luc Besson-ish wide lens shots and quirkiness (the characters here reminded me of The Boondock Saints in their flamboyance), along with some very creative martial arts sequences. At some point, in fact, it gets so over-the-top it starts to play out more like a Stephen Chow movie. It then jumps from Night of the Living Dead to Mortal Kombat to Highlander, making a stop or two at X-Men along the way. This eastern/western mix works surprisingly well and the result is highly entertaining, if you enjoy this kind of thing. Just don't go looking for any depth, causality, plot logic, or plot altogether, really. The few dialogue scenes are a mess (excluding the one that takes place when everything turns an orange shade, about an hour into the film), and often serve only as a backdrop for canted steadicam close-ups and multi-character Mexican standoffs. This is not high brow cinema, it's high octane. And it was perfectly fine by me. It is when the film discards some of its humor that it begins to lose its charm, but even then, the spectacularly choreographed martial arts kept me entertained. I would be interested in seeing "The Ultimate Versus" – a director's cut that's ten minutes longer and has CGI special effects, according to IMDb.

P.S. There are few things I hate more than a dubbed movie, but in this case (like in Shaolin Soccer), I found that at certain scenes (particularly ones involving "the runt" – the wacky short guy), the English dubbing actually adds to the absurdity of the film. Anyway, the DVD offers both the American and the original Japanese dialogue tracks.

Some people are insane! I mean, what were you expecting? The English Patient? I for one love a good gorefest and awesome if its done out of Hollywood. The plot had holes, I guess, I can't really think of anything that really had me come out of the movie. If you rented or bought this and thought, "Hey, that couldn't have happened, like, oh my Gawd how fake!" Why would you watch a zombie/sci-fi movie to begin with? You did read the synopses right? The acting was good, watch the original undubbed one please before you blast the flick! The characters were priceless, I loved the "Charlie's Angels"-esquire stances the yakuza guys made! Tre cool. I loved the fighting as well, every ten minutes or so someone was getting the crap beat out of them. It was also very refreshing to not see so much wire-flying, the one part I can recall that did sort of do that was shot tightly so it didn't seem so exaggerated. I'm a chick and I LOVED how Prisonor KSC2-303 kept hitting the annoying chick over the head, classic! No out of nowhere love scenes here my good people! The "villian" was also top-notch. I thought the casting was great. Tak Sakaguchi, wow, baby don't be so mean! :P I can't wait to see him in more things or in the sequel. Please don't watch this if you're cynical or hard to please. ITS A ZOMBIE/GORE/SCI-FI INDIE FILM! Yeah just don't buy it, let someone else who appreciates such fineness get a copy.

*By the by, this review is based on "The Ultimate Versus" edition.

You can't beat that combination, unless you add in ninjas, or samurai... or Godzilla, but zombies and yakuza alone make a very compelling film, even if it has no sensible plot.

The storyline is simple enough - prisoners escape, get double crossed, then find out they're in a "forest of resurrection" full of zombies that don't like yakuza very much. That's all you really need to know.

Sit back and relax as you watch hilarious gory and impossibly bad acting. The movie is based on its visual appeal alone, forget the plot and the characters, watch the fight scenes, the strange standoffs, bad monologues, and hideously bad acting.

There are parts, however, where the movie drags on a bit. Killing zombies, even though enormously awesome, does become monotonous after an extended period. But these lulls are few and far between them. The action definitely keeps you hooked for most of the film.

Overall? Great action film.

7/10

There are 666 concealed portals that connect the world of the living to the world of the dead. In Japan, two prisoners runaway through the Forest of Resurrection, where the 444th portal is located, to meet a group of criminals that had organized their escape. One of the convicts sees a kidnapped young woman and argues with the leader of the gangsters. There is a shooting, and one of the mobsters is killed. However, a couple of minutes later, the dead rises and attacks his former mates. They realize the resurrection power of the forest, and the criminals become concerned, since they used the location to dump their victims in the spot. Suddenly they are attacked by a great number of zombies and have to fight to survive. But when the boss of the gangsters arrives, the survivor prisoner sees that his fate is to fight against his opponent.

The cult "Versus" is a gruesome, insane, gore and bizarre zombie movie. The brainless non-sense story is shot in one location in the woods, is full of action, very funny, fast paced and entertaining, with great choreography of the fights. The anti-hero has killed forty-three persons, faces very cruel bad guys (but we never hear their names), rescues the girl saying that he is feminist, but hits her head every time he needs to fight, meaning all the time. The leader of the bad guys with the knife is very funny and I had a lot of fun with this original film. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "O Portal da Ressurreição" ("The Portal of Resurrection")

Note: On 08 Dec 2020 I saw this film again.

This movie, while made to be an action type with some subtle humor, grades pretty low to folks looking for an action movie to snuggle up with and watch alone. This movie is much, much more fun to watch with others, preferably with a sense of humor.

If you're not a fan of action, and are looking for anything remotely deep and meaningful, look someplace else.

The movie is shot entirely in a forest setting, with the times shifting from morning to twilight frequently.

The action is very well put together despite being on an obvious low budget. I recommend this movie to anyone with a few hours to kill with a few friends.

To begin with please don't take this film as serious, as you will be let down. It is in fact a very fun film, which you should really just hop on for the ride as it has some great moments that made me laugh out loud. I'm a big fan of eastern movies, and feel that it stands out on its own due to the combination of styles going on, from the zombie attacks to the samuri / yazuka influence. It travels along at a great pace, the only bad thing about this is the sour taste left in the poor ending, but take that away and its great, and i would say to anyone that they should give it a go, but please watch it with a smile on your face. The sound track is also very good and if anyone knows if it has been released i would love to find out.

I just finished seeing this film. Really interesting camera shots makes film feel like it's in another dimension or on another planet. It also estahblished an eerie, spooky atmosphere and gives a very haunting setting. The good guys can fight, the bad guys (including several Yakuza) aren't afraid to battle, and there are zombies. As the film goes on, the zombies aren't really the main problem the hero faces.

The action scenes in this movie are wild, intense, and can sometimes put a guilty grin on your face. Whether it's sword slicing, bullets blazing, or good old fashioned martial arts, the pace is frenetic and really establishes the characters well. Although a few scenes are paced slower, the action here ties it all together. This is the first time I've seen Zombies in combat who actually put up a great fight. The main part of the story unfolds during the second half and the ending is creative and original. Versus is unlike any movie I've previously seen.

I must've repeated to my friend that the soundtrack for Versus is really cool and it complements the fight scenes fanatic pace. Cool fashion, good amount of gore, and an interesting storyline. Definitely an film not to be missed.

Boy, oh, boy. They don't make them like this anymore and boy, do I wish I had written this flick. This is a movie living and breathing (so to speak) cult following. "Versus" is a thrilling, fast and furious action-horror-comedy-martial arts actioner directed by Ryuhei Kitamara and features a bizarre and original plot line that's virtually nonexistent.

The irony is, even though it's original, the film spends very little time explaining its more complicated bits and gets great mileage out of the Japanese actors, none of whom have real names, other than two or three-word descriptions like the grungy, tough-talking anti-hero "Prisoner KSC2-303" or "The Girl" or "Yakuza Leader with Butterfly Knife." Real deep characters, huh?

The plot is simple, if confusing, and all seven minutes of it occur within the first few scenes: In Japan's "Forest of Resurrection," two escaped convicts are on their way to making a rendezvous with a group of fellow gangsters. A shoot-out occurs over a disagreement between KSC2 and the Yakuza leader regarding a kidnapped young woman in the trunk of his car - The Girl; one of the men is killed, and so is KSC2's buddy.

KSC2 and The Girl run off into the forest, but after he, and each of the gangsters put 50 bullets into the reanimated corpses of KSC2's buddy and the dead gangster. Soon, KSC2, The Girl, and the gangsters realize something is not right about the woods they had set up as a prearranged meeting spot, and it isn't long before they're all emptying clip after clip into the zombified corpses rising up from their shallow graves in the forest floor. (On a side note, I don't think any of the gangsters ever run out of ammunition.)

As it would turn out, the gangsters have been using the forest as a burial ground for their victims, and they're coming back to settle a score with their killers. Since this is the Forest of Resurrection, all the bodies of slain gangsters are rising from the dead and fighting against their living enemies. That's about all there is to the plot, and all you need to know.

This is a strange gem right here, folks. I don't think there's single production in Hollywood that could touch this movie in terms of style and subject matter. It looks fantastic, really giving the woods a life of its own (so to speak), and the mood of the film is effectively surreal. (It kind of reminds me of "The Evil Dead" in a few ways.) "Versus" ultimately plays out like a collision between every low-budget zombie movie, John Woo shoot-'em-up picture, and action movie we've ever seen. Now in Hollywood, ladies and gentlemen, we call that originality.

"Versus" is a skillful blend of each genre and it never loses sight of the main conflict between escaped convicts and gangsters; the zombies are merely a nuisance - who at first appear to be an interference with shadowy gangland activities. But as it would turn out, however, there's more to the story, and the Forest of Resurrection, as well as the zombies somehow figure into a plot that's best explained by the main villain of the picture, a stranger who I presume is The Man (since as I said before none of the characters have real names), who seeks The Girl to use her in his quest to achieve immortality, or something like that.

It's also pretty funny too. Much of the comedy in this movie arises from one panicky gangster member and two horribly disfigured police officers (whom I'm not sure are dead and resurrected or just badly injured) who have vowed to bring down the escaped convicts. And the corny one-liners (ever-present in the American dubbed version) will definitely get you laughing at its attempts to sound cool to our braindead audiences.

Even though "Verses" is not rated, it's extremely bloody with enough over-the-top gore to please any American gorehound or fan of zombie pictures. It's also got enough martial arts action and Woo-style gunplay to satisfy anyone who's gone into the film thinking this is a samurai picture (from looking at the DVD cover art).

"Versus" will definitely win on the cult circuit; whether it's ready to take on the American mainstream is a question that only time will answer. We'll just have to wait and see who the winner of that titanic battle will be...

7/10

I have to tell you, the user comments are far more entertaining than this movie itself!

Plus: Just because it's a foreign movie, it doesn't automatically qualify for 7 points, what are you people thinking!

Oh, and the best Japanese movie ever? Don't ever tell a Japanese person that, or you'd be barred for ever from entering that country.

There are great Japanese movies, but this one definitely does not belong. While Night of the living Dead, and Day of the Dead have achieved cult status, this movie does not (it's at best an attempt to copy, with a worse plot, worse actors, worse special effects, and worse make-up).

Well maybe I should continue watching the movie (it's running right now, but couldn't keep my attention). After so many good Japanese movies, I've been caught a little off guard. If they only had spend a little more on special effects, it would have rivalled the old Godzilla movies (now these are some real funny movies)!!

This movie actually turned out to be cooler than I expected. I really didn't know what to expect when I was first about to watch this. I only knew it had some zombies,and had something to do with a portal and reincarnation. Its also totally campy, very bloody and gory, and one of the more memorable characters in it. The guy who runs around and screams all the time is hilarious. The dialog is cheesy. It has a decent story to it. Its just a fun movie. The visuals will keep you glued by themselves. This is a very low budget movie, but just remember , if you go to watch it, have no expectations. This movie will make you say " What the F" more than make you think. There is also a nice shot at Matrix movies too. Pretty cool movie and I in no way expected the movie to end the way it did. I wonder if there is more to come?

I hesitated long before I finally decided to see this movie. "Battle Royale" had been my last positive experience with Asian cinema and movies like "The Eye" and "Uzumaki" really turned me off. Besides, I was getting tired of martial arts and feared that "Versus" is going to be one long, boring opera of Kung Fu fighting. Thank God, the movie could prove me wrong. "Versus" is more a parody than anything else, but with really good fighting scenes. I compared the movie with "Evil Dead" in the headline, because obviously both movies play in the woods, feature zombies and don't lack humor. They have something else in common. Both flicks were made with little budget, which you don't see at all. The special effects, the actors and the directors in "Versus" are top noch. I can't point out enough, how much I appreciate the comedy aspect of the movie and how the makers managed to mix that comedy with action and story. The ending is a little controversial.

SPOILERS:

My explanation is that 99 years later, the good brother turned evil and the reincarnation of the villain is now good. If there's a deeper meaning behind that, then it may be that every man that is given power will abuse this power. The ending could also say that established things will eventually turn bad until they are knocked over by new and fresh ideas.

END OF SPOILERS & PHILOSOPHIC THOUGHTS.

The only bad thing I can say about the movie is that it could have been a little shorter. Also, the story lacked logic at times, but story is not what "Versus" is about. It's about fun and gore and, boy, you get both!

People hyped the heck out of this movie, but I can't attribute my disappointment to that. I've seen a lot of movies that weren't as good as the hype but still ended up being enjoyable... Versus does not fit that bill.

This is not a good movie. It has a very interesting plot, and would definitely make a good anime... but there is just so much... well, stupidity. This story could have been told just as well (and probably would've been a LOT more enjoyable) in, literally, half the time. The characters are more like caricatures than people -- which would be OK if it weren't taken so far as to get in the way of the movie. I just couldn't take any of them seriously. I guess it would be enjoyable if you were, I don't know, really into gore and really, really high, but that's about it. I don't mind gore... but if you're not a BIG fan of it, portions of this movie will definitely make you roll your eyes.

While the story is cool (and I did like the ending), there is a whole lot of empty space where there's basically nothing but zombies running around and getting blown to pieces. I'm generally a fan of zombie movies, but give me a break; we don't even get the typical "shoot them in the head until they fall down." They take a random number of bullets or dismemberment and just randomly die with no rhyme or reason.

Oh, and these zombies use swords. And guns. And kung freaking fu. I guess this would be cool if anything else in this movie had ANY kind of cohesion, but it doesn't, so this feels like just another "well, we felt like it, so they can do it" bit.

There are... I guess you would call them protagonists... a couple of government agents who should be at least a relatively major plot point. They get... ten? Fifteen minutes of air time? I can't stress how completely ridiculous the characters are. There are three that actually have substance... kind of... and only because they are THE main characters (you won't know who they are until half way through the movie, which makes it slightly more bearable). Everyone else is crazy. Completely insane. That is not an exaggeration. It's fun at first, but once you realize that there really are only three important characters in this film, it gets very boring and very repetitive.

The camera work starts off very, very badly. I was gratified when the director decided to stop using a hand-held camcorder. There might have been some kind of significance to this, but I was too busy trying to be interested to get that far into it.

There's just not much reason to watch this. There's some good fighting, but so much of it is filmed REALLY badly that there are only one or two fights that are enjoyable. The hand-to-hand fights are definitely a plus, and are one of the only reasons this didn't get a 1 from me.

I hated to hate this movie. I love zombie flicks, martial arts, gunfights, mythology of all sorts, horror movies, subtitles and Japanese chicks. This movie tried, and could have been/had all of the above, but failed dismally on all fronts.

3.5/10... rounded down for IMDb, because this doesn't have the entertainment value for a 4.

It took me three sessions to finish this movie because it kept putting me to sleep. The word that seems to best fit this movie is "droning." The action is most unimpressive, the gore is not half as plentiful as I was lead to believe, and none of the performers make much of an impression. Somehow, despite all the zombie-shooting, it all feels flat somehow, and the expository scenes move at the molasses pace typical of Japanese films. And there is actually a lot of exposition; this film is hardly the nonstop whirlwind of blood and bullets that people make it out to be. I'm not one of those who complained that "Black Hawk Down was all action and had no characterization!" I'm not somebody who insists that every movie needs an original story and a deep message. But if a movie is going to consist of nothing but crazy, violent action, it had better be more interesting than this, which doesn't really have a single pulse-quickening moment in it. I tried to watch this movie again with friends, but they gave up on it in less than 15 minutes.

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

The contribution that Japan has made to the world of screen violence can hardly be overstated, and in the 21st Century there seems to be a new renaissance of sheer bloodiness. Movies like BATTLE ROYALE, ICHI THE KILLER and VERSUS really set new standards for out and out shocking violence that I don't think any other country in the world has matched.

VERSUS is basically all about action. The premise is a crazy one that involves kung-fu samurais re-incarnated as yakuza who then get turned into zombies and vampires. It's actually a very interesting and quite complex story in its own right, but basically it's an excuse to get a bunch of people in a forest and stage a fairly continuous sequence of hand to hand fights, sword fights and gun fights - with a supernatural angle to justify some HK style OTT acrobatics and an undead angle to justify people getting seriously messed up and still fighting on. Genius. Sick as all hell, but genius!

These days, good action movies from Hong Kong are becoming increasingly rare. For years HK stood unchallenged and exported its unique cinematic arts throughout Asia. Since the talent or the investment or the will or whatever seems to have fled the HK industry in recent years, it seems like other Asian countries are stepping up to the challenge of filling the gap. Korea has produced movies like MUSA and MY WIFE IS A GANGSTER, Thailand has produced BANGKOK DANGEROUS and TAK 4, INDIA has produced AANKHEN and MISSION KASHMIR. Hollywood and Europe have had a go too, but with so little success overall it's hardly worth mentioning.

VERSUS is clearly made by a small independant team who recognised that Hong Kong isn't going to produce the next jaw-dropping action movie any time soon, and who believed they had what it took to do it instead. It takes a lot of confidence and dedication to produce results like these on a clearly low budget, and Napalm Films must have had a lot of both. VERSUS attempts practically every type of action scene that Hong Kong has been famous for (and Japan traditionally has not), and pulls most of them off very well.

There'd been such a lot of hype around VERSUS on the net for ages that I'd found myself instinctively hating it before I knew anything about it, but when I saw the trailer I was converted to enthusiasm. Seeing the wild disparity between the cool SHIRAYUKI HIME trailer and the dreadful full length movie gave me some trepidation about VERSUS, which is probably a good thing since at least I wasn't expecting something flawless. VERSUS is not flawless, but it's much much better than SHIRAYUKI HIME.

The action scenes are not better than Hong Kong's best - they're not even nearly as good as some of the scenes in movies like MAGNIFICENT WARRIORS in fact, but they're imaginatively and enthusiastically staged and filmed. And violent! Oh so very very violent! The special effects are some of the most convincingly brutal I've seen. ICHI THE KILLER may have had more outrageous effects, but was never in danger of having convincing effects. BATTLE ROYALE may have had more realistic violence, but nothing like the sheer magnitude of the bodily damage people take in VERSUS! People get cut in half, lose limbs, have gaping holes blown through them... well, you know how much it takes to stop a zombie moving . It's all played fairly non-seriously, but not to the cartoonish extent of ICHI. It looks pretty damn real.

Definitely not one for the squeamish, really not a family movie. But for the sick puppies out there who maintain an innocent curiosity as to just how violent a movie can be (like myself, I admit), VERSUS is definitely a must-see!

I had heard so many good things from my friends and I've been a fan of the directors more recent work.

That being said, I was amazed at how slow paced and boring this movie was. The action was serviceable, but the forest setting made everything incredibly confusing and a headache to look at.

The story is pretty much non existent and extremely trivial. It also does the frequent low budget trope of setting everything in one location.

Watch Godzilla Final Wars instead, it's a much better film.

I wish I could get my hands on the people who left favorable reviews for this movie. What a waste of precious time. - And to show I'm not an unreasonable movie viewer, I'd like you to know that some of my favorite movies include: "Dead Alive", "Story of Ricky", and "Mr.Vampire".

1. The entire frickin' movie is filmed in the woods. I mean that literally. There are no buildings, structures, and even the view of the blue sky is limited. With the mounds of dirt lying around you almost expect to see a new home development going in over the rise. The times we do see the sun it is a various locations, even amidst the same scene.

2. The Plot: What plot? - They seemed to have tried to combine elements of "The Matrix", "Night of the Living Dead", and "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon", and thought it would be this blockbuster. And remember while trying to visualize these concepts, that it's all taking place in the same area of the frickin' woods! (NOTE: The only redeeming qualities of this movie are the attempts to mimic the fight scenes in "The Matrix", and the gore by far was the best. There were some hilarious parts (they probably weren't meant to be). The good guy, who's name just happens to be Destiny, by the end of the movie is wearing all black (ala Neo), and is even brought to the brink of death just like in "The Matrix". Two of the bad guys are supposed to be agents (ala Agent Smith). One says he was trained by the FBI at Langley AFB, the other says he was born and raised in Yellowstone National Park. The explanation for the zombies is that they are all the dead and buried men that the hoodlum hitmen assassinated and buried in the woods. Oh, but these aren't ordinary woods, it's the "Resurrection Forest"! - Yeah, that explains things alot?

3. The sound track is abysmal. Was definitely made by one musician using a synthesizer, and you could tell at times he tried to mimic the techno-noir of "The Matrix".

NOTE: Once again, don't forget to picture this all occurring in the same frickin' woods. They even run over the same spots time and time again.

Anyway, my head hurts telling you all this! I think I've gotta pop in a copy of "Ringu", "Battle Royale", or even "Godzilla(the original) just so I can go to bed feeling like the day wasn't a total waste.

Remember, you've been warned about this one, and for God's sake, stay out of the "frickin' woods"!

I came across versus by chance, and thought that the premise described on the back of the DVD sounded interesting. I enjoy watching all kinds of film genres, so I thought "why not?! If it's bad I'll just stop watching". I popped it in my DVD player and was thoroughly entertained for the next two hours or so.

The gist of the story is: Two convicts who manage to escape their police escorts, run into a forest to meet up with some shady looking Yakuzas, who they believe will take them to a safe place. The lead character who is only known as Prisoner KSC2-303 (please note none of the characters have names) doesn't quite trust them, especially when he finds out that they have brought a kidnapped girl along for the ride. There is a stand off. Insults are exchanged (I especially enjoyed Prisoner KSC2-303's comments).Guns are fired, and one of the yakuzas as well as the other convict are shot, and consequently come back to life as zombies. We later find out that the head yakuza that shows up a little later in the film, is a five hundred year old demon/vampire/sorcerer who wants to open the gates of hell and thus gain incredible power. In order to do so, he needs the girl's blood (isn't that always the way?). It seems that the forest they are in, is the 444th portal to hell.It is also known as the forest of resurrection where the dead come back to life. It's also a popular burial ground for people the yakuzas have bumped off over the years. So as one might guess, there are a whole bunch of zombies walking around (with loaded guns I might add). What follows are a lot of fights; knife fights, gun fights, hand to hand combat, fights with big samurai swords. Everybody in this film fights. Even the girl who is supposed to be completely helpless manages to hit a few people. There are many more details that I have left out, as that would give away all the plot twists. IMHO, the less you known about the film the more likely it is that you will enjoy it.

As well as action and gore (there is plenty of gore) the film has a lot of humorous moments that I think work really well (they had me giggling). The action is great. The fight choreography is well executed, particularly the final fight between prisoner ksc2-303 and the main "bad" guy. The acting was also quite good. I liked the performances from the two male leads. However, there was one performance that to begin with was rather amusing, but went slightly over the top towards the end (if you watch this film, then you will know who I'm talking about).

Overall, this is a really fun, funny and enjoyable film, which manages to blend a whole range of genres rather competently.It may not be everyone's cup of tea,but I think if you're an open-minded film viewer, who enjoys watching films that are a little quirky and unconventional,you may like it. I've watched this film many times and still enjoy it as much as I did the first time I watched it. I look forward to Versus 2.

For a unconventional movie events play out very carefully except for the strange ending! This type of movie doesn't need much of a plot! Still there is a little story told in between the action to keep it interesting! This movie is about fun! Action and fun! Zombies against very unfriendly characters! The characters portrayed are all evil! But still you will like them. The characters don't take themselves to seriously and that's what makes all the ridiculous stuff acceptable! There is this police officer who keeps bragging to his partner! Before the end this officer is part of a parody on "The Matrix" (the bullet dodge scene on the roof). He shouts that he cannot be hurt because he is 500 times faster than Mike Tyson! You see him dodge like Neo in "The Matrix" and gets blown away! This is an example of the humor you can expect! Empty your mind and just watch and you will enjoy this movie!

Let me start by saying that this is the craziest action movie I have ever seen. I don't mean crazy in the sense it has crazy action scenes (it has), or crazy characters (it has..) or a crazy story (it does have...), I mean crazy on the freaking whole, the whole movie is crazy and has a crazy concept, and that is what made it interested and entertaining for me.

So basically a group of convicts escapes into a forest to rendezvous with another group of gangstas, the thing goes wrong, there's a double cross, a gunfight... the usual. However, that forest happens to be one of the 666 portals to the other world. I know right? So what does this mean? That the guys who are gonna get killed... aren't really going to die! This gives a whole new meaning to the idea that people die if they are killed.

And this brings us to the best shoot-out action and sword fights of zombies versus yakuzas you will ever seen! Well, then there's something about this guy trying to figure out what the hell is going on, rescuing a kidnapped girl, being the chosen one and fighting the forces of evil... at the same time. It's one hell of a complex plot in a plot less movie... What?? This movie is incredibly gory, funny and fast-paced. It IS action-oriented, but it's so much more! It's also a very crazy film if I haven't mentioned it yet and if it's going to do anything to you other than tell you in your face "it's all about the fun" is to entertain you for 2 hours or so.

If you like some new and crazy ideas for a not-stop hilarious and action ride, watch this movie with the thought that it's going to be very, very special.

This film screams "independant." It's not so much the low budget, or the terrible dialogue, or the awful translation, or the complete lack of direction. It's the stress on western cinema. Every. Single. Fight. Starts with a standoff between two people. A guy could be pointing a gun to another fighter's head, the fighter would then bring his gun up and the man with the gun ALREADY READY TO FIRE would do nothing. There's even a stand off between a sword and an assault rifle. One-sided? Very. Retarded? Exactly.

The director tried, but the over-acting was just too terrible. Wonderful gore effects, A+ for those especially with such a limited budget. But it can't help a guy acting like a zombie acting like a spider complete with creepy crawler sound effects. The comedy relief is annoying, the characters are annoying, and if I hear: "What are you talking about" one more time I'm going to scream.

Overall: Annoying, I don't get why everyone likes it. Last time I checked fight scenes were only as good as the glue of plot that held them together.

A very poor film. Mediocre action, characters and acting. A film that uses slapstick, gore and stereotypical "Slick" bag guys, the composed anti-hero, the poor little innocent girl, a Clouseau type inspector and of course your gullible zombie hordes which march to their deaths in a series of slaughterfests. The film doesn't alter reality it ignores it, from 6 shooter revolvers firing a couple if dozen shots to throwing away your guns for hand to hand combat in the midst of a standoff. Most disappointing was the main characters portrayal as a bad ass but sakaguchis performance was so poor that rather than conveying "not caring" he conveyed "stare straight ahead and don't change that face" The movie gets one star because the yakuza leader really put some effort into his character. In all this blows, some people say that its a movie that a group can relax with a drink and laugh at and enjoy, however thats something that can be easily done with XXX2. Doesn't take much to entertain a couple of drunks and this film isn't very much. Usually when someone criticises eastern cinema by saying says "if that film was made in the west people would say it blows" In these cases I class them then and there as idiots but on this occasion I accept it. This film is just a Japanese cult fad and if it was shot entirely the same with script, plot, level of performance and even the exact same frames, no doubt the public would bomb it. Face it, this blows.