Versus

At the time of release, Versus (2000) felt like the hyperkinetic homemade culmination of Japanese samurai films, American horror, and ridiculous action tropes drenched in buckets of gore.  And that's exactly what it was.  Only time - and cinema in general - has caught up to director Ryuhei Kitamura's over-the-top antics, making his cult classic debut seem less like a feature-length trailer and more like de rigueur filmmaking in the 2K era.

Escaped prisoner KSC2-303 (Kitarmura's film dispenses with character names entirely) runs afoul of a gang of hired yakuza thugs who, along with a kidnapped girl, await the arrival of their boss.  However, their meeting place happens to be in The Forest of Resurrection, and once the bodies start piling up they don't stay dead long.  Fighting their way through zombies, bullets and blades, our semi-heroic boy and girl duo are unknowingly headed for a rendezvous with destiny, doomed to replay a bloody conflict between good and evil through the ages.

 

An outgrowth of the non-stop momentum of the Mad Max films with the visual inventiveness of early Sam Raimi, Versusis in action-mode from the first frame.  Produced over the course of two years with a rapidly shrinking budget, Kitamura's film is a shotgun blast of energy, enthusiastically embracing its inspirations while simultaneously trying to grind them under its boot.  The film races from swordfights to gun battles to comedic zombie dismemberment with no apologies, packing everything in like it's the last hurrah for practical filmmaking (which it sort of was).  Versus disavows CGI trickery to revel in squibs, wirework and good-old-fashioned stunts.  Now, 20-plus years later, it's a sight for sore eyes.

 

Speaking of which, Arrow's new Blu-ray has come under fire a bit for the digital reworking Kitamura has done with the film, removing the intense color shading on certain sequences to return things to a more traditional look.  To my eyes, it's a huge improvement; the film has never looked this good.  Disc two also includes Ultimate Versus, an extended version with 10-minutes of new footage, effects and music.  Additional extras include three audio commentaries, behind-the-scenes featurettes, interviews, deleted scenes, a pair of mini-movies and a collector's booklet.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Tormented

Image
The west coast always struggled to create a creepy atmosphere on screen.  All that southern California sunshine just doesn’t lend itself to ghostly apparitions or gothic castles.  But  Tormented  (1960) gives it a good try, staging its opening scene in an abandoned lighthouse where blackmail turns into murder - and one cover up leads to another.  Director Bert I. Gordon, better known for his giant-sized - but low-budget - monster movies, works well at this level, turning in a film that delivers small scares but perhaps his most  professional finished product. Tom Stewart (played by genre regular Richard Carlson) is a fairly successful jazz pianist whose impending marriage to Meg Hubbard (Susan Gordon) will put him in an entirely new tax bracket.  Trouble is his old flame, Vi (Juli Reding), isn’t taking this lying down.  After  allowing  her to fall to her death in the opening scene, Tom is haunted by disembodied visions of his ex-lover who refuses to go quietly into the afterlife.  And
Read more

The Cat and the Canary

Image
My favorite directors have always been showoffs:  Hitchcock, DePalma, Spielberg (when he’s feeling frisky) and gonzo auteurs like Sam Raimi.  There’s just something about their cinematic ambition, constantly reminding the audience that, yes, there actually  is  someone behind the camera calling the shots.  And that directorial discontent shines through even in the early days of the medium, such as Paul Leni’s 1927 adaptation of  The Cat and the Canary .  While the rest of the industry was still learning the basics of visual language, Leni fills his frame with tracking shots, POVs and dramatic lighting that set the standard for every spook show to come!  Gathered for the reading of the last will and testament of eccentric recluse Cyrus West,  the potential heirs meet up in his decrepit mansion to discover who will inherit the estate and family jewels.  Predictably there is some petty jealousy when young Annabelle West is named the sole beneficiary…that is, if she can be proved sane afte
Read more

Impulse

Image
William Shatner, for all his ego and arrogance, always seemed comfortable being the butt of a joke.  His career outside of the  Star Trek  franchise was a bumpy road of corny TV shows and enjoyable B-movie dreck.  But he never delivered anything less than 100% “Shatner!”  Like 1974’s  Impulse , a regional drive-in quickie directed by William Grefé ( Stanley, Mako: Jaws of Death ) that casts the once and future Captain Kirk as a psychologically troubled con man whose childhood trauma leads to a string of murdered women.  After dumping the body of his last victim in a Florida canal, Matt Stone (Shatner) is on the prowl for another financial windfall, this time using a phony investment scam to entice Ann (Jennifer Bishop) into a romantic relationship.  But when Ann’s daughter, Tina, is witness to the murder of his business associate (Harold “Chop Top” Sakata), Matt has to clean up his tracks and speed up his escape plan.  That includes silencing Tina…and whoever else gets in his way.   Ta
Read more