VERSUS (Japan, 2000)
: : New York Premiere : :



119 minutes, 35mm, in Japanese with English subtitles
Directed by: Ryuhei Kitamura
Starring: Tak Sakaguchi, Hideo Sakakai, Chieko Misaka, Minoru Matsumoto

Q: In your opinion, can you use a horror film to describe a political situation?
Director Ryuhei Kitamura: No, I don't think so.
- Inside Horror Magazine

No meaning, no sense, no redeeming features whatsoever, VERSUS is best described by its director as:
NON-STOP, FREE-FALL ULTRAVIOLENCE ACTION ENTERTAINMENT! Five Yakuza thugs, two escaped convicts, one evil wizard, and a forest full of gun-toting zombies. Mix with gasoline and serve. High on style, low on budget, delivering non-stop, blood-spurting fun, it's Sam Raimi's EVIL DEAD for a new millennium.

Prisoner KSG-301 escapes from the slammer with one bracelet of a handcuff clamped around his right wrist, the other end clamped around some poor sap's severed arm. A fashion-forward yakuza gang is supposed to get him to safety, but they insist on hanging out and waiting for the boss, passing the time by tormenting a random female hostage. They're getting on KSG-301's nerves, he tells them to stop, they won't, there's a short sharp eruption of violence and the yakuza guys wind up in the dirt with sucking chest wounds.

Movie over? Not quite. See, this is a magic forest, and the recently deceased yakuza come back to life, and KSG-301 and the hostage make a run for it, with a growing army of kung fu kicking zombies on their tails. Proving just how far a determined director with a simple goal, a shameless cast, and some cool ideas for new ways to kill zombies can go, VERSUS has nothing on its mind but pure cinematic anarchy. Irredeemable, inexcusable, indefensible - but fun.