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.

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