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  1. #1
    Kam
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    Versus: Director's Cut

    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.

    (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
    /create

  2. #2
    Big science. Hallelujah. noddin0ff's Avatar
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    Ha! Versus sounds like a great guilty pleasure! Someday when I have oodles of time I'll have to remember this. My prediction, the american remake will probably be a buddy comedy...

  3. #3
    Can a crooner get a gig? dean_martin's Avatar
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    I'm glad you brought this up. When I was strolling through Best Buy over the weekend I was floored when I saw a copy of Pinocchio 964 from Japan.

    Flashback to 1994-97 time period. I was a law student and part time law clerk working from my home. I had plenty-o-time to invest in hobbies one of which was searching for hard to find Eurotrash on VHS from the likes of Jean Rollin, Jess Franco, Dario Argento, Mario Bava, Jose Larraz, Paul Naschy, Radley Metzger, etc. I had 2 major sources at the time - Midnite video and Video search of Miami. VSOM was probably at the forefront of the weirdness going on in Asia, but my interest was still Europe. However, with my first order they sent me a video full of trailers - most of which was from their Asian collection. The clip of Pinocchio 964 was startling. I did a search on the web a while back to see if VSOM was still around, but couldn't find anything. I'm going to have to find that video and review those trailers. I remember seeing a clip of a fight scene in the snow which was probably the inspiration for the similar scene in Kill Bill Vol.1. Also, I remember several trailers for Asian chick fighters that kick ass - one of whom killed her prey with deadly breast milk! Talk about your guilty pleasures.

  4. #4
    Sgt. At Arms Worf101's Avatar
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    Saw this movie on Showtime recently...

    Interesting if you've nothing else to watch. As you say VERY hard to follow who's doing what to whom for what reason. I kinda got the ending but didn't think the action was groundbreaking at all. Kinda like anime done in realtime. Interesting.

    Da Worfster

  5. #5
    Kam
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    Quote Originally Posted by dean_martin
    I'm glad you brought this up. When I was strolling through Best Buy over the weekend I was floored when I saw a copy of Pinocchio 964 from Japan.

    Flashback to 1994-97 time period. I was a law student and part time law clerk working from my home. I had plenty-o-time to invest in hobbies one of which was searching for hard to find Eurotrash on VHS from the likes of Jean Rollin, Jess Franco, Dario Argento, Mario Bava, Jose Larraz, Paul Naschy, Radley Metzger, etc. I had 2 major sources at the time - Midnite video and Video search of Miami. VSOM was probably at the forefront of the weirdness going on in Asia, but my interest was still Europe. However, with my first order they sent me a video full of trailers - most of which was from their Asian collection. The clip of Pinocchio 964 was startling. I did a search on the web a while back to see if VSOM was still around, but couldn't find anything. I'm going to have to find that video and review those trailers. I remember seeing a clip of a fight scene in the snow which was probably the inspiration for the similar scene in Kill Bill Vol.1. Also, I remember several trailers for Asian chick fighters that kick ass - one of whom killed her prey with deadly breast milk! Talk about your guilty pleasures.
    were you in miami then? i was in miami from 92-97.

    the versus dvd had a few trailers on it (equally non-sensical) and one of them had this female assassin movie (something Bullet) that made NO sense at all but was definitely the whole asian chick fighters/ assassin type movie, no deadly breastmilk though.
    /create

  6. #6
    Can a crooner get a gig? dean_martin's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Kam
    were you in miami then? i was in miami from 92-97.

    the versus dvd had a few trailers on it (equally non-sensical) and one of them had this female assassin movie (something Bullet) that made NO sense at all but was definitely the whole asian chick fighters/ assassin type movie, no deadly breastmilk though.
    No, I was in Montgomery, AL (a huge cow town with a seamy underbelly) from late '93 to the early part of 97. Everything was mail order through catalogs. I still have some of the old Midnite Video and VSOM catalogs.

    Most of my vhs tapes are boxed up. When I locate the trailer video from VSOM, I think I'll post a list of the advertised import titles. I haven't watched it in years. It will be interesting to see what else (besides Pinocchio 964) has made it to dvd and is readily available.

  7. #7
    Kam
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    Quote Originally Posted by dean_martin
    No, I was in Montgomery, AL (a huge cow town with a seamy underbelly) from late '93 to the early part of 97. Everything was mail order through catalogs. I still have some of the old Midnite Video and VSOM catalogs.

    Most of my vhs tapes are boxed up. When I locate the trailer video from VSOM, I think I'll post a list of the advertised import titles. I haven't watched it in years. It will be interesting to see what else (besides Pinocchio 964) has made it to dvd and is readily available.
    hehe, found this plot synopsis of pinocchio 964 on imdb:

    Pinocchio 964, lobotomised cyborg sex slave, is thrown out onto the street by his owners because of his inability to maintain an erection. He is befriended by a criminally insane, memory-wiped, homeless girl. Meanwhile, the corporate entity who manufactured and sold him plots to kill him because of his malfunction.

    That sounds awesome. i gotta find it now!
    /create

  8. #8
    Can a crooner get a gig? dean_martin's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Kam
    hehe, found this plot synopsis of pinocchio 964 on imdb:

    Pinocchio 964, lobotomised cyborg sex slave, is thrown out onto the street by his owners because of his inability to maintain an erection. He is befriended by a criminally insane, memory-wiped, homeless girl. Meanwhile, the corporate entity who manufactured and sold him plots to kill him because of his malfunction.

    That sounds awesome. i gotta find it now!
    I dunno, sh*t like that happens all the time, doesn't it?

    Jus' kiddin'. Even if the movie sucks, those f*ckers deserve my $20 just for tryin' somethin' like dat.

  9. #9
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    I had a friend who bought versus in college strictly based on the cover. This movie is great. Yakuza, Kung Fu, Zombies, Shootem up all rolled into one. Nothing amazing or groundbreaking in it, but it's fun.

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