Good concept, poorly executed.

The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

Versus in (2000) is a action,horror,fantasy and comedy movie direct by Japanese director Ryuhei Kitamura whom i really like after watching his American work like The Midnight Meat Train and No One Lives.After watching this movie i have to say what a interesting way to get into the mainstream audience and the world.Versus is a B-grade movie and it not trying to do something other than that,it chessy,over the top and ridiculously amazing.For a movie it has everything you dream of : yakuza zombie,John Woo awesome gun play,wuxia sword play,an bass ass main character and a cast full of people acting like their on some kind of heavy drug.As an anime fan like myself i really like the plot of this movie and i wish they explore it more but too bad it end with a cliffhanger.

Remember when you were at school and the teacher reminded you that you had an assignment or project due the next day, and that you had been aware of it for three months. And you hadn't even started yet...So rather than take the F you scrawled together some crap over night with some hastily arranged details and rambling barely coherent information that only partially touched upon what was required. Now imagine you sheepishly handed it in. And got an A.That my friends is Versus. I have seen this reviewed glowingly yet for the life of me cannot see why. It has received enough plaudits that one day I went out and bought it because I couldn't find it in any video shop, and boy do I regret that $15 now.Loosely put Versus is about a Japanese Forest that has the power of resurrection due to it being one of the gates to something or other, and every few hundred years a battle is fought between Japanese guys over who will rule the next while. That's at least what I jotted down before I gave up. The plot merely exists to have a bunch of sword fights, zombies and various costumes on screen in what amounts to little more than a student film.Depending on who they are attacking the zombies are either superhuman or consist of exploding jelly, they either stand there waiting to be shot or flip all over the place out of harm's way. Key characters fight, die, come back to fight and die again. Simply more bodies, more fodder for the rest. After the first 10 minutes it's all the same, and let me tell you the first 10 minutes are bewildering and lousy.There's lots of blood, lots of bullets and loads of bad acting. But this is the one point where Versus is a cut above. There is one actor in this film who simply must be seen to fully understand the level of his crapulence. There is not one moment where he is not at 100% ham, either poking his tongue out, jumping around like a demented animal or eye-bulging a reaction to the most mild dialogue.I can think of not one other thing that elevates this film to something worthy of being spoken about, or poor enough to raise a chuckle.I watched this. It sucks. Let's move on.Final Rating - 4 / 10. Two hours of Banana Splits production values and improv-night dialogue, all there so that some Japanese guys can have sword fights and shoot fake zombies while playing dress-ups.

If Sam Raimi and gotten drunk when he was 17 and made a movie about Japanese gangsters and zombies, it would have looked a lot like Versus.A couple of escapes from a Japanese prison with "lawbreaker" in English on the front of their prison jumpsuits meet up with a group of Yakuza gangsters in the middle of the forest. T he gangsters are there to pick up the prisoners and help them escape, but insist they wait for another man to arrive. T he prisoners don't care for that, especially one who looks like the boy band version of a badass. Boy Band Badass especially doesn't like it when he finds out the Yakuza have brought a kidnapped girl along with them. They man they're waiting for has plans for her as well, but Boy Band Badass grabs one of the gangsters' guns and demands they let her go. One of the gangsters gets shot dead…and then he comes back to life as a zombie. As Boy Band Badass and the girl flee and the Yakuza pursue, we learn this forest is where the gang has been burying their victims…and they've all come back to life as zombies as well. What follows that is some really crazy stuff as Boy Band Badass fights the Yakuza and they all fight the zombies. Then the man they were all waiting for shows up and we find out this is all some re-enactment of an ancient battle for a dark power of destruction, only this is in modern times and everyone looks like they stepped out of a music video.There is an awful lot of this movie that is laugh out loud goofy. It is never boring, however, and these Japanese filmmakers do know how to film a fight scene. You can actually see what's happening and follow along, rather than the indecipherable blur of jump cuts and microsecond edits that mar most action scenes in American movies. But you can't take anything else in this film at all seriously.If you're high on some illegal or illicit mind-altering substance, you might have a nice trip watching Versus because it's very visually creative. If you'd like something you can bring home and MST3K with your family and friends, Versus might be a nice choice as well. But if you're neither stoned nor snarky, there's not much here to recommend.

The idiocy of popular opinion never ceases to amaze me. Just when I think the general public's taste in film couldn't get any worse, I see Ryuhei Kitamura repeatedly thrown under the bus. It's no understatement to say that the sheer abuse this guy takes is both unreasonable and unwarranted. It's become perfectly obvious that most viewers are simply too pompous, stuck up, or clueless to enjoy Kitamura's better films."Versus" is a prototypical example of getting the most out of a shoestring budget, a success that is perhaps eclipsed only by Shinya Tsukamoto's "Tetsuo: The Iron Man" (1989). Take any popular commercial director, chuck them in a forest with a camera and a bunch of no-name actors and see what happens. In almost every instance you'd get an absolute disaster. Most directors lack the ability to make something out of nothing. The mere fact that "Versus" kicks a$$ is enough, in and of itself, to solidify Kitamura's place as one of the most resourceful filmmakers of modern times.Regardless of budget limitations, this is a highly entertaining movie. Yes, the acting is mediocre and the storyline is simplistic, but Kitamura's camera-work is better than almost any director alive today. The action scenes in "Versus" are driven by exceptional camera placement. The riverbed fight and the final sword duel are two cases in point, as the character movements are given a high energy feel through a shifting of camera angles. The physical limitations of the actors are indiscernible because they are effectively portrayed as proficient in combat. Most filmmakers lack the talent to pull this off, but given the fact that Kitamura is a genius behind the camera, it's no surprise that such techniques work very well here. This is not your typical Hollywood style of amateurish hyper-editing, because in "Versus" you can actually identify the characters' specific movements.As I've pointed out in my previous review of "Sky High" (2003), Kitamura has an uncanny ability of applying ultra stylish camera-work and scoring to trivial events to make them twice as enjoyable. Take the opening confrontation between the yakuza and escaped prisoners. The movement of the camera is exceptional and the soundtrack is catchy, spicing up an otherwise filler scene. I've been lectured on multiple occasions that "directors shouldn't spin the camera around actors", but this pretentious rule (probably concocted by some old fart at AFI) is a worthless criticism that artificially limits creativity. Most interestingly, Christopher Nolan used this "forbidden" shot during the fundraiser scene in "The Dark Knight" (2008), but I have yet to see anyone slam him for it. Seems like a case of selective criticism to me. There's simply nothing wrong with using it.As if arbitrary movie-making "rules" weren't bad enough, some of the negative comments for "Versus" on this site are beyond ridiculous. If "Versus" is the worst film you've ever seen, rest assured that you're a victim of your own ignorance. Go watch "Pistol Opera" (2001) or "Kill Devil" (2004), then come back and apologize.If Kitamura's films are "too long" and "boring" for you, it's time to take a hard look at your personal rack of dvds, which will most likely expose your own hypocrisy. My blood boils when hearing people blather about Kitamura's dullness, especially considering how many of these same reviewers will kindly sit through Peter Jackson's 3-hour torture sessions with half a dozen superfluous endings tacked on one after the other. Kitamura never comes close to that level of bloated pretentiousness. Sure, the latter half of "Versus" acts as a calm before the final storm, and much of the visual/audio techniques are applied to lull the viewer into a state of tranquility (almost like those "Pure Moods" cds). This may provoke a bit of drowsiness, but that's a fairly minor qualm to be made. If anything, Kitamura's patience to capture the natural settings is a positive.In terms of mood, "Versus" is a very light-hearted and playful film despite the bloody violence that's presented. With quotes like "I was trained at FBI headquarters in Langley" and "I grew up in Yellowstone National Park in Canada", one should not take this film too seriously. (Though most American viewers are probably too dim-witted to understand why these statements are funny to begin with.) The love interest has some laughable moments too, like when she finally dodges her hubby's knockout shot. Most notably, the sword-wielding gun-toting zombies are beyond hilarious. Make no mistake. This is an over-the-top action/horror movie that never takes itself too seriously.That said, art-house snobs could never appreciate a film such as this regardless of how well it's executed. Hence my use of "pompous" and "stuck up" as adjectives in my opening paragraph. But what about the remaining detractors who I refer to as "clueless?" Well, that would refer to your typical mainstream cinophile who could never enjoy a film with a budget less than a few million dollars. It's depressing when one realizes that most moviegoers are clueless, while much of the remainder are pompous, arrogant, or simply have no taste. That leaves a relatively small piece of the pie to be respected. No wonder then, that Kitamura will never get the acclaim he so rightfully deserves.To not like "Versus" may be due to poor taste in film, but at least you can redeem your worth by watching and enjoying "Sky High" and "Azumi" (2003), which are two of the most enjoyable Japanese films ever made. To dislike those is a sign of lunacy.