Versus DVD Review
In Versus, two escaped convicts rendezvous with a Yakuza gang in a woods who are supposed to aid in their escape. But, it soon becomes apparent that these Yakuza have orders and they are not to help the convicts. When tempers flare over the kidnapped girl that the Yakuza brought along, a firefight breaks out that leaves one gangster dead…but, not for long. After convict KSC2-303 and the kidnapped girl flee into the forest, the Yakuza soon find out that they are in the Forest Of Resurrection where the dead don’t stay dead. That coupled with the fact that the Yakuza have been disposing of their bodies here for a long time means recapturing the girl and the convict will be a tougher job. When the boss finally arrives, the reason why the kidnapped girl and convict KSC2-303 had to come together in the forest of resurrection comes to light.
Although there are zombies afoot in the Forest Of Resurrection, Versus really isn’t much of a zombie movie. The zombies play a much smaller part than one would think from the premise or from reading the cover. The camera pretty much avoids the zombies faces, but the make-up looks pretty minimal, with more attention paid to them looking like they just sprung from the ground (i.e. really dirty looking) rather than dead and decomposed looking. It’s not exactly clear how these zombies are killed either. Head shots don’t necessarily do it. It would seem that to kill a zombie in the Forest Of Resurrection, one needs to shoot the zombie a lot, then marvel at the fact that they are not dead yet, then, express a look of greater resolve and more determination and shoot the zombie even more, possibly blowing a hole in their body that you could fly a paper airplane through or, more commonly done, point the camera through so that the viewer could see the zombies assailant through it before falling down. This seems to work swimmingly.
None of this is to say the Versus is in any way a bad film. It’s actually quite cool and entertaining. While light on zombies, it’s definitely heavy with gore and blood. It doesn’t quite reach Story Of Ricky level gore, but it’s definitely creeping up behind with a .50 Caliber rifle and an over-sized sword with superfluous spikes and things jutting out of it. With heads flying off, folks split in half and portholes blown through men, the special effects gore lends an air of black comedy and slapstick that breaks up the serious over-the-top action that this flick is no doubt known for. The fight scenes are expertly choreographed plus well shot and edited without a lick of CGI. They have an old Samurai meets new fangled gangster movie way about them that nails your ass to the seat.
An interesting point to this movie is that none of the characters have names. The closest thing to a name that anyone has in the escaped convict KSC2-303. Even the boss is only referred to as “him” and “he”. Yet, this doesn’t get in the way of the movies consistency or enjoyability.
While I wouldn’t recommend this to zombie movie buffs, I would wholeheartedly recommend it to anybody with an affinity for action and Kung Fu movies because Versus definitely delivers the goods. I was glad I saw this movie.
