Featured Audience Ratings

• xGary X

  
  A group of gangsters kidnap a girl and meet a pair of escaped convicts in the woods awaiting their boss for instructions. Little do they know that he's an unkillable demon who can re-animate the corpses of their dead victims...Well if that synopsis sounds ridiculous, it gets… More
  A group of gangsters kidnap a girl and meet a pair of escaped convicts in the woods awaiting their boss for instructions. Little do they know that he's an unkillable demon who can re-animate the corpses of their dead victims...Well if that synopsis sounds ridiculous, it gets sillier than that! This is the kind of film where if it were done straight-faced, it probably would've been a disaster. Fortunately it has just the right amount of tongue in cheek humour to make it great fun. It has the same kind of mix of gore and laughs that the likes of A Chinese Ghost Story contains, and as a result comes across as a kind of Asian martial arts version of Evil Dead 2 or Peter Jackson's Bad Taste. Like those films, the budget was obviously tight, so you can spot some wires and there are a couple of ropey effects, but it's all part of the fun. Laugh at it or with it, it's an a musing bag of manga style lunacy and frenetic action that's basically just an excuse for constant fist fights, gun battles and samurai swords splattered with a liberal dose of gore. Unpretentious crowd pleasing nonsense.

• Phil H

  
  Rather bizarre film which I didn't really understand until the gone the midway point to be honest, the plot is odd and not entirely explained as you are spoon fed bits of it very slowly. Its a blend of horror, comedy, sci-fi and fantasy really, almost has an 'Evil… More
  Rather bizarre film which I didn't really understand until the gone the midway point to be honest, the plot is odd and not entirely explained as you are spoon fed bits of it very slowly. Its a blend of horror, comedy, sci-fi and fantasy really, almost has an 'Evil Dead' quality to it really, that kind of dark humour with over the top extreme characters. Mix that with a kind of 'Mortal Kombat' style plot about opening portals to other worlds which lie within the "Forest of Resurrection" but only with the blood of a certain woman etc...a bit cliched but fun. The whole thing is highly stylised like all Japanese action films...its slicker than a frogs bathing suit, the main hero has dark longish hair and a full length black leather trench coat with black leather pants, dare I say looking a bit 'Crow' like. There's plenty of martial arts, sword play and clever editing along with unique camera angles, personally I think there has been an element of 'The Matrix' borrowed for this film hehe well that and quite a few other films. Its well known as a cult but I wasn't overly stunned by it, its cool but nothing special really, a bit too cliched for me.

• JY S

  
  Ryuhei Kitamura's style goes a long way, and <i>Versus</i> has plenty of it.<p>The plot is definitely light for a film with nearly a 2 hour run time; however, despite this along with its low budget and lack of multiple settings, the sci-fi fantasy concept, wacky… More
  Ryuhei Kitamura's style goes a long way, and <i>Versus</i> has plenty of it.<p>The plot is definitely light for a film with nearly a 2 hour run time; however, despite this along with its low budget and lack of multiple settings, the sci-fi fantasy concept, wacky characters, and stylized action keep things afloat from beginning to end.</p><p>When all is said and done, the action is the most memorable piece of this picture. Whether it be the plethora of guns, hand to hand combat, or swordplay, it all stands out because of its unique choreography. The lengthy and highly entertaining finale of a fight contains unique swords for both of the leads.</p><p>Tak Sakaguchi thrives more on his action than acting, but in a film where characters have no names, it all works out. Hideo Sakaki is a confident and effective villain. Minoru Matsumoto and Kenji Matsuda are the over-actors of the bunch and they just barely stay under the level of annoyance.</p><p><i>Versus</i> is an action film that can be viewed as a cult classic. Zombies with guns anyone?<p>

• Lewis C

  
  Versus aims to be a stylish, cool action flick with a healthy mixture of gore, gun-play, and martial arts. Unfortunately, a lot of those attempts at being stylish and cool, end up coming off as cheesy. All the silly posing and failed attempts at humor don't do a lot to help… More
  Versus aims to be a stylish, cool action flick with a healthy mixture of gore, gun-play, and martial arts. Unfortunately, a lot of those attempts at being stylish and cool, end up coming off as cheesy. All the silly posing and failed attempts at humor don't do a lot to help Versus, and neither does the fact that the characters are almost universally annoying and uninteresting. The story is something about zombies and resurrection forests and portals to hell. The word "convoluted" comes to mind. The frequent action scenes could have been the movie's saving grace, but they were uniformly uninspired and routine. The gore wasn't funny or copious enough to warrant any attention. The acting is bad. Not "campy bad" or "hilariously bad", just bad. The kind that's difficult to watch. If you couldn't tell, I thoroughly disliked Versus. I've seen a lot of great Japanese action flicks. This wasn't one of them.

• Dean M

  
  Bullets, blades and blood fly in every direction with Hellenic zeal in the kung-fu-meets-zombie movie that is <i>Versus</i>. Before you can say <i>Dawn of the Dead</i>, zombies are stumbling all over the place, and to make matters worse an ancient ninja-demon… More
  Bullets, blades and blood fly in every direction with Hellenic zeal in the kung-fu-meets-zombie movie that is <i>Versus</i>. Before you can say <i>Dawn of the Dead</i>, zombies are stumbling all over the place, and to make matters worse an ancient ninja-demon with a score to settle gets in on the action as well. A relentless barrage of Splatstick ensues in this spirited but ultimately thin homage to the cinema of Sam Raimi, George Romero and John Carpenter - Japanese style.

• Wahida K

  
  A Forest to Hell comes Alive with Death.

• Cassandra M

  
  The contribution that Japan has made to the world of screen violence can hardly be overstated, and in the 21st Century there seems to be a new renaissance of sheer bloodiness. Movies like BATTLE ROYALE, ICHI THE KILLER and VERSUS really set new standards for out and out shocking… More
  The contribution that Japan has made to the world of screen violence can hardly be overstated, and in the 21st Century there seems to be a new renaissance of sheer bloodiness. Movies like BATTLE ROYALE, ICHI THE KILLER and VERSUS really set new standards for out and out shocking violence that I don't think any other country in the world has matched. VERSUS is basically all about action. The premise is a crazy one that involves kung-fu samurais re-incarnated as yakuza who then get turned into zombies and vampires. It's actually a very interesting and quite complex story in its own right, but basically it's an excuse to get a bunch of people in a forest and stage a fairly continuous sequence of hand to hand fights, sword fights and gun fights - with a supernatural angle to justify some HK style OTT acrobatics and an undead angle to justify people getting seriously messed up and still fighting on. Genius. Sick as all hell, but genius! These days, good action movies from Hong Kong are becoming increasingly rare. For years HK stood unchallenged and exported its unique cinematic arts throughout Asia. Since the talent or the investment or the will or whatever seems to have fled the HK industry in recent years, it seems like other Asian countries are stepping up to the challenge of filling the gap. Korea has produced movies like MUSA and MY WIFE IS A GANGSTER, Thailand has produced BANGKOK DANGEROUS and TAK 4, INDIA has produced AANKHEN and MISSION KASHMIR. Hollywood and Europe have had a go too, but with so little success overall it's hardly worth mentioning. VERSUS is clearly made by a small independant team who recognised that Hong Kong isn't going to produce the next jaw-dropping action movie any time soon, and who believed they had what it took to do it instead. It takes a lot of confidence and dedication to produce results like these on a clearly low budget, and Napalm Films must have had a lot of both. VERSUS attempts practically every type of action scene that Hong Kong has been famous for (and Japan traditionally has not), and pulls most of them off very well. There'd been such a lot of hype around VERSUS on the net for ages that I'd found myself instinctively hating it before I knew anything about it, but when I saw the trailer I was converted to enthusiasm. Seeing the wild disparity between the cool SHIRAYUKI HIME trailer and the dreadful full length movie gave me some trepidation about VERSUS, which is probably a good thing since at least I wasn't expecting something flawless. VERSUS is not flawless, but it's much much better than SHIRAYUKI HIME. The action scenes are not better than Hong Kong's best - they're not even nearly as good as some of the scenes in movies like MAGNIFICENT WARRIORS in fact, but they're imaginatively and enthusiastically staged and filmed. And violent! Oh so very very violent! The special effects are some of the most convincingly brutal I've seen. ICHI THE KILLER may have had more outrageous effects, but was never in danger of having convincing effects. BATTLE ROYALE may have had more realistic violence, but nothing like the sheer magnitude of the bodily damage people take in VERSUS! People get cut in half, lose limbs, have gaping holes blown through them... well, you know how much it takes to stop a zombie moving . It's all played fairly non-seriously, but not to the cartoonish extent of ICHI. It looks pretty damn real. Definitely not one for the squeamish, really not a family movie. But for the sick puppies out there who maintain an innocent curiosity as to just how violent a movie can be (like myself, I admit), VERSUS is definitely a must-see!

• El Hombre I

  
  Action that will leave you dizzy along with good production are the main attractions to this mixed bag of zombies, martial-arts, guns, and gore. You don't actually care about the characters who are so poorly written because you are just bewildered by some amazing fight… More
  Action that will leave you dizzy along with good production are the main attractions to this mixed bag of zombies, martial-arts, guns, and gore. You don't actually care about the characters who are so poorly written because you are just bewildered by some amazing fight choreography and graphic gore. People fly through the air, kicking and chopping at everything they can or blasting everything that moves to pieces leaving blood, guts, spit and ass all over the woods. The only thing that stops the rating from being higher is the attempt to cram a plot in where it doesn't belong. Although some might get tired of this attempt and switch off after 60 minutes, it's still a fun mix of horror, humor and good old teeth breaking carnage <a href="http://s273.photobucket.com/albums/jj203/goji9000/?action=view¤t=versus.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i273.photobucket.com/albums/jj203/goji9000/versus.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a>

• Tsubaki S

  
  I was expecting a bit more from this one, Kitamura has some creative camera ideas but needs to get over the fact that he didn't directed "The Matrix" films. The film stretches way longer than it should, with long pauses of the two leads just standing around trying to… More
  I was expecting a bit more from this one, Kitamura has some creative camera ideas but needs to get over the fact that he didn't directed "The Matrix" films. The film stretches way longer than it should, with long pauses of the two leads just standing around trying to look cool. Not really worth all the cult following that it got.

• EightThirty .

  
  Versus is like a Movie Version of Devil May Cry ^_^n NICE!!!

• Dean !

  
  Really didn't live up to the hype. I was hoping for some wow factor in the film to show how the East does an action/horror film with lots of martial arts. This is all very low budget effects and the story isn't great at all. At the end I couldn't wait for the finish,… More
  Really didn't live up to the hype. I was hoping for some wow factor in the film to show how the East does an action/horror film with lots of martial arts. This is all very low budget effects and the story isn't great at all. At the end I couldn't wait for the finish, dragged out to nearly 2 hours!

• Steve B

  
  I was with it, then it lost me, then I was with it again, but then it shook me off, and then I picked back up, but the ending made me realize I was never on board to begin with. I wanted to like it, but the movie made it impossible.

• vieras e

  
  Mindless bloodshed, zombies, bizarre Asian gangsters - what more could you want?

• Lesley N

  
  One hour fifty nine minutes of gunfight and stabbing as lots of zombies and gangsters kill each other in a forest. With a bit of history thrown in.

• Duncan R

  
  Another action movie with a capital A, and a pretty fun one at that. It doesn't just stop at intense gunplay and balletic wire-fu, either. There's some pretty nifty bladework as well. The cast is pretty good overall, despite the occasional overblown performance. The movie… More
  Another action movie with a capital A, and a pretty fun one at that. It doesn't just stop at intense gunplay and balletic wire-fu, either. There's some pretty nifty bladework as well. The cast is pretty good overall, despite the occasional overblown performance. The movie has its share of flaws, sure; The main story doesn't really make sense until we get exposition in the form of a monologue by the movie's villain, the subplots involving the comic relief characters don't really go anywhere, and there's the occasional inconsistent editing here and there (wow, he changed out of his prison overalls and into that kick-ass leather trenchcoat in the blink of an eye!). But, much like <i>Wanted</i>, this is a movie where it's okay if style trumps substance. And boy, does it have style!

• Daniel P

  
  Deep in one of the forests of Japan, portal 444 of 666 exists, the portal to the 'other side'. In this place, the dead come back to life. Or something. Basically, it's another Zombie movie, and honestly the plot is best completely ignored/glossed over in this one (in… More
  Deep in one of the forests of Japan, portal 444 of 666 exists, the portal to the 'other side'. In this place, the dead come back to life. Or something. Basically, it's another Zombie movie, and honestly the plot is best completely ignored/glossed over in this one (in fact the film starts to come off the tracks whenever it takes itself seriously - thankfully not often). Best seen as a show-off of inventive blood and gore effects and witty deaths, as well as cool <I>Evil Dead</I> style 'camera on stick' fancy tricks, there's much to enjoy here before it outstays its welcome. Which it inevitably does, about an hour and 10 minutes in. As soon as the exposition starts coming and the film just tries to give Tak Sakaguchi and Hideo Sakaki excuses to look vaguely cool-ish, tedium gradually increases until the penultimate showdown, which is very satisfying indeed. For some reason though, there's also tagged on a horribly cheap looking, and - I'm presuming - unintentionally hilarious far-future scene; hopefully not a foundation for a future-bound sequel. Performances are over the top but not un-enjoyably so, aside from a truly *awful* Chieko Misaki, and much of <i>Versus</i> is pretty good times.

• Curt C

  
  It's cheesy and hokey in all the right ways, the story is surprisingly good, and the ending is fantastic.

• Doctor S

  
  I remember starting to watch this and gave up as it became abundantly clear the director had no interest whatsoever in substance. I'm for some empty-headed action but against brain-dead attempts.

• John M

  
  What a non sense and repetitive mess!!! I just could stand to watch an hour and stop it because I got saturated watching the same fight sequences over and over again and the worst it was not niether funny. Versuzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz...

• Marcus W

  
  I'll give kudos for effort and trying something different, but there's so much going on and so many genres thrown in that it actually starts to get lost as it makes things up as it goes along. If they had stuck to just the gangsters and the zombies, it could have been great,… More
  I'll give kudos for effort and trying something different, but there's so much going on and so many genres thrown in that it actually starts to get lost as it makes things up as it goes along. If they had stuck to just the gangsters and the zombies, it could have been great, but sadly it becomes an effort to watch. Not to mention the fact that there are no likeable characters (or particularly good actors) - least of all the "hero" who is just arrogant and irritating.

Read all 20 featured audience ratings