Today’s quick review: Versus. An escaped prisoner (Tak Sakaguchi) saves a kidnapped woman (Chieko Misaka) from a gang of thugs, and they flee into the Forest of Resurrection, a haunted place where the dead come back to life. Pursued by the thugs, assailed by the undead, and at a loss to explain the events around them, they gradually uncover the truth: they have been brought to the Forest as part of an immortal’s (Hideo Sakaki) plan to gain ultimate power.
Versus is a Japanese action horror movie with a muddy plot and a low budget. One part zombie flick, one part rival fight, Versus takes a moderate premise for an action movie and stumbles on its execution. The budget shows in everything from the lone filming location to the mediocre gore and special effects. The characters are on the thin side, and the writing focuses more on building mystery than conveying the plot.
As an action movie, Versus has a few factors going for it. While the zombie scenes are bland, the hand-to-hand fights do pack a bit of punch. The protagonist upgrades his weapons and outfit as the movie goes on, a nice video game-esque touch. Outside of its dramatic and incomprehensible plot, the movie does not take itself too seriously, yielding a handful of funny moments that could have been hilarious with the right delivery.
Apart from these glimmers of charm, Versus suffers from bad decisions stacked upon poor fundamentals. The thugs are downright bizarre in their behavior, overshooting comic relief by a wide margin. The characters have a tendency to fight each other and let each other go for no reason other than to pad the number of action sequences. The pacing drags for the first half of the movie, with wave after wave of zombie filler delaying the main plot and its holes.
Some of these issues may be the result of watching the dubbed version of the film rather than the subtitled version. Dubbing clobbers everything from the delivery to the lines of dialogue themselves, truncated or altered to fit the characters’ mouths. A poor dub could be to blame for many of the flaws with the writing, downgrading it from passable to poor. But as it stands, Versus has problems that eclipse its potential.
Watch Versus only if you are looking for a deeply flawed action film with a couple of entertaining moments. The slow pacing and cryptic plot make it difficult to follow, even for viewer who wants to laugh at the film rather than with it. Adequate martial arts, one or two good ideas, and the odd joke give it marginal value, but most viewers are better off skipping Versus entirely.
6.5 out of 10 on IMDB. I give it a 4.5 for a decent premise wrapped in poor execution.