Versus
One of the 666 gates of Hell (Hmm, they got a few more since Fulci’s day) rests deep in Japan’s “forest of resurrection”. Who are the epic figures drawn here by fate to do battle? What is their connection to this place? What will happen if the powers of Hell are unleashed? How can the evil be stopped? I do not have the answers to these riddles, but one thing is for sure. They involve lots of flipping around and shooting things!
Comments:
I must note for this review that I viewed the director’s cut of this fine work. It didn’t make a damn lick of sense to me, but I’m not about to sit through the original and compare plot notes. Why? Because frankly this film didn’t impress me in any way, shape or form.
Let’s start, as per this site’s primary mission, with the horror elements. Well despite the presence of zombies, this is more an action film with a few bits of comedy than anything intended as frightening. As it is, it possesses some pretty good gore effects, and some nice corpse-fu.
Moving on to the plot, um, I still don’t have any idea. It’s an odd story involving reincarnation, fate, and some weird kind of blood magic, thing, stuff. The writing puts forth some effort to be witty, but for me, the humor was just misplaced. I can’t say anything about the original, but the ending on display here was just total shite, and it‘s negation of any positive character in the film made me wonder why I had just wasted my time watching this thing. It’s clunky non-sequitur nature leads me to believe that it is unique to the director’s cut, as it seems like something the studio would have wisely put the kibosh on. (I’ll have to defer to you hardcore animanga turned live-action fans to enlighten me. If I’m wrong, you can drop me a note. No, on second thought, don’t do that. I truly don’t give a crap.)
Character is where the production shows its greatest dearth. I’m sorry, no one here is likable. The hero is just as sociopathic as his opponents, and said yakuza thugs with their affected personality quirks are simply annoying. There’s an unhealthy dollop of misogyny on display. The female lead takes turns at being tossed around like a throw pillow, and sitting on her ass simpering.
As an innocuous martial arts movie, I’ve seen worse. But then again, I’ve seen a hell of a lot better.
3.0