Versus (ヴァーサス, Vāsasu) is a 2000 Japanese zombie action horror film directed and co-written by Ryuhei Kitamura.
[3] In the film, a nameless prisoner, a nameless female and her Yakuza abductors fend off zombies in a forest that resurrects the dead while the Yakuza's mysterious leader attempts to open a supernatural gate hidden within the forest and seize its dark power.
Principal photography was originally intended to last 3 weeks but was extended to 7 months due to weather and financial issues.
When Prisoner KSC2-303 (Tak Sakaguchi) sees a girl (Chieko Misaka) that the gang kidnapped, he immediately becomes suspicious of what they plan to do with her.
The Yakuza leader, The Man (Hideo Sakaki), finally arrives and confronts them, angry that they lost KSC2-303 and The Girl.
The Man plans to use The Girl as a sacrifice to open the portal hidden in The Forest of Resurrection and obtain the power of darkness.
During his unconscious state, Prisoner KSC2-303 experiences a flashback of his past life in the 10th century; he is the ally who was too late to save the lone samurai.
Outnumbered and facing long odds, Pre-Prisoner KSC2-303 reluctantly kills The Girl to stop The Man from obtaining the power of darkness.
Originally, Versus was intended to be a sequel to director Kitamura's "amateur" short film Down to Hell, with the intention of also shooting Versus on video with a low budget as he did with Down to Hell but instead decided to shoot on film with budget of $10,000 for a theatrical release.
[7][8] Director Kitamura stated that Versus was inspired by the films of Sam Raimi, John Carpenter, and George Miller.
[2] Versus combines elements of multiple genres such as gunplay, martial arts action, chanbara sword fighting, zombie horror, and comedy.
He is the one that came up with that excellent title"Versus held its premiere at the Tokyo International Fantastic Film Festival on October 29, 2000.
[11] The Rolling Stone called the film "A Japanese zombies-vs.-gangsters action-horror comedy that plays like Quentin Tarantino remaking THE EVIL DEAD while on a speed binge".
Sight & Sound praised the film by commenting "With Kurosawa-style swordplay, martial arts and elaborately choreographed gun battles".
Harry Knowles of Ain't It Cool News commented on the film "I've never seen anything like it, it's a new kind of movie."
Prior to being released commercially in the United States in 2004, DVD distributor Media Blasters produced an R-rated edited cut which removed the film's gore scenes.
Tak Sakaguchi directed the action sequences for the new footage due to Yûji Shimomura being unavailable at the time.
[2] Released in a 3-disc DVD set by Media Blasters/Tokyo Shock, a majority of the film now features some sort of reworking, be it color correction, new music, added action sequences, or full scene replacement.
The original film means a lot to me and has huge fans all over the world, so I can’t do anything easy or cheap – I can’t guarantee anything in the long run, it’s a definite that I’ll do the new Versus in the future for sure."