Kam
09-28-2005, 05:44 AM
Here's another obscure Japanese movie. The director (Ryuhei Kitamura) has been gaining a great deal of acclaim and his movies are about a few seconds away from getting remade here in the US. So... here goes.
Versus opens with a title crawl telling us that there are 666 portals in our world to hell. One such portal, the 444th portal is in this place called the Forest of Ressurection (for obvious reasons as you'll see). Then it starts in what seems to be ancient japan as a samurai warrior kills several zombie samurais. He then faces down the "boss" badguy and gets killed. Flash forward to present day and two convicts are on the run and stop by a road by a "forest" (wink wink nudge nudge) and are waiting for the men who will help them escape. The men arrive but are the flunkies of whoever these two made a deal with. The relationships between everyone here made no sense whatsoever. Who worked for who, who was good/bad, who wanted who dead/ etc. was all extremely confusing. Everyone was supposed to wait for the bossman to arrive and while they do, tensions rise (for whatever reason) and one of the convicts trades insults with the flunkies, aggravating them to no end.
The cinematographer also really likes to spin the camera around the action and that got kinda nautious after about 20 spins. So the flunkies inexplicably also have a girl they kidnapped with them and this causes strife. A fight ensues, people are shot. People come back to life (AHA! Hence the forest of "ressurection") One of the convicts gets shot, comes back to life. The 'good' convict saves the kidnapped girl and goes running off into the forest. The 'badguys' pursue them and then remember something and put 2 and 2 together.
1) they've been coming to this forest for years and burying the bodies of the people they killed here.
2) the last two people that were just shot both came back to life...
ergo... all the people they killed are roaming around the forest!! DOH!
it then turns into a samurai/shoot em up/ zombie movie. BUT... it moves very slow at times and it is verrrrrrrrrrrry difficult to figure out the relationships of everyone. I dont want to give away the ending, but suffice is to say, the ending doesn't clear anything up. Quite the contrary, had no idea what the hay the ending meant, other than left it open ended for a sequel (which he is making). The ending did tie in with the opening sequence and some themes of destiny and re-incarnation (similar to, but not quite like the ressurection in the forest of ressurection).
It's shot reasonably well but is obviously a low-budget movie. The entire movie takes place in the forest and i dont reccommend eating (especially not eating a steak cooked medium! doh!) while watching it as it gets nice and gory and bloody in parts (the unrated director's cut version). It's not your average fare, and for that alone could get a reccomendation, but as a caveat, it does move at a snail's pace (especially after the 10th spin of the camera around everyone holding guns in everyone's faces, that got old after the 8th spin easily). so i'd say between renting this or anything by adam sandler (other than punch drunk love) rent this. :D
(going to be watching another of his movies soon, titled Alive, where a prisoner survives his own execution and is then given a choice by the government: try getting executed again, or subject himself to bizarre experiments. hilarity ensues.)
peace
k2
Versus opens with a title crawl telling us that there are 666 portals in our world to hell. One such portal, the 444th portal is in this place called the Forest of Ressurection (for obvious reasons as you'll see). Then it starts in what seems to be ancient japan as a samurai warrior kills several zombie samurais. He then faces down the "boss" badguy and gets killed. Flash forward to present day and two convicts are on the run and stop by a road by a "forest" (wink wink nudge nudge) and are waiting for the men who will help them escape. The men arrive but are the flunkies of whoever these two made a deal with. The relationships between everyone here made no sense whatsoever. Who worked for who, who was good/bad, who wanted who dead/ etc. was all extremely confusing. Everyone was supposed to wait for the bossman to arrive and while they do, tensions rise (for whatever reason) and one of the convicts trades insults with the flunkies, aggravating them to no end.
The cinematographer also really likes to spin the camera around the action and that got kinda nautious after about 20 spins. So the flunkies inexplicably also have a girl they kidnapped with them and this causes strife. A fight ensues, people are shot. People come back to life (AHA! Hence the forest of "ressurection") One of the convicts gets shot, comes back to life. The 'good' convict saves the kidnapped girl and goes running off into the forest. The 'badguys' pursue them and then remember something and put 2 and 2 together.
1) they've been coming to this forest for years and burying the bodies of the people they killed here.
2) the last two people that were just shot both came back to life...
ergo... all the people they killed are roaming around the forest!! DOH!
it then turns into a samurai/shoot em up/ zombie movie. BUT... it moves very slow at times and it is verrrrrrrrrrrry difficult to figure out the relationships of everyone. I dont want to give away the ending, but suffice is to say, the ending doesn't clear anything up. Quite the contrary, had no idea what the hay the ending meant, other than left it open ended for a sequel (which he is making). The ending did tie in with the opening sequence and some themes of destiny and re-incarnation (similar to, but not quite like the ressurection in the forest of ressurection).
It's shot reasonably well but is obviously a low-budget movie. The entire movie takes place in the forest and i dont reccommend eating (especially not eating a steak cooked medium! doh!) while watching it as it gets nice and gory and bloody in parts (the unrated director's cut version). It's not your average fare, and for that alone could get a reccomendation, but as a caveat, it does move at a snail's pace (especially after the 10th spin of the camera around everyone holding guns in everyone's faces, that got old after the 8th spin easily). so i'd say between renting this or anything by adam sandler (other than punch drunk love) rent this. :D
(going to be watching another of his movies soon, titled Alive, where a prisoner survives his own execution and is then given a choice by the government: try getting executed again, or subject himself to bizarre experiments. hilarity ensues.)
peace
k2