FORMAT: DVD (REWATCH)
ORIGINAL REVIEW:
(As posted on February 2nd, 2016)
Ryuhei Kitamura has had an interesting career. He’s made a Godzilla movie (Godzilla: Final Wars), a Clive Barker adaptation (The Midnight Meat Train), and a horror film for WWE Studios (No One Lives). Each of those flicks had their various ups and downs, but they were all interesting and at the very least, memorable. Versus was his debut feature-length picture as a director and even though it’s as uneven as anything he ever did (if not more so), it’s a good showcase for his “anything goes” aesthetic.
The film opens with a back story that’s kind of confusing (something about there being 666 realms in the world), but never mind. All you need to know is that two prisoners are being chased by gangsters through the woods. This isn’t just any forest though. Whenever someone dies in the woods, they come back as a zombie. Pretty soon, there are hitmen and gangsters shooting zombies left and right.
Versus is a fitfully amusing hodgepodge. Kitamura basically mashes up a bunch of genres and sees what sticks. It’s hard to completely hate any movie that features samurais, yakuza gangsters, Kung Fu, and zombies. However, it’s just a bit too incoherent to really work. Plus, at two hours, it’s about a half hour longer than was absolutely necessary, and despite a number of pretty good zombie attacks and gun fights, it gets a bit numbing after a while.
With this picture, Kitamura announced himself as quite a showman. He exhibits a lot of John Woo-type filmmaking gymnastics, his camerawork is often reminiscent of Peter Jackson’s early work (especially the fist-through-the-brain scene), and the zombie scenes have a definite Romero vibe to them. Although it goes on too long and is uneven as all get out, it’s still worth watching.
AKA: Down to Hell 2. AKA: The Return: Down 2 Hell.
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