Hard Corpse
Style. It's mildly amusing how a solid word can be assigned to such a nebulous concept. For instance, a shirt has and always will be just that - a shirt. However, should you factor in the style of the shirt, the definition's now in the details. Is it a double-breasted button-up? T-shirt? Wife beater? Clean? Stained with ketchup? Have the words 'No Fat Chicks' emblazoned across the chest? And besides that, who's wearing it? Is it strained across the beer gut of your creepy uncle as he forced you into the closet? Was it quickly snatched off the wire hanger your mother beat you with to keep you silent? Or is it being used as a Kleenex as you explain your painful story of abuse through sobs to a psychiatrist years later? This equation; what is being worn and who is wearing it, equals style - note that how much is spent on the clothing is a non-issue. A conflict in these two factors might be why Hot Topic shirts are amusing until you see who's wearing them. Or it could work as well as middle-class kids skimming Salvation Army for threads. You see, it's clothes and (wo)man that form a whole - you can't have style without substance to it.

I suppose that's why Versus works so well. From the outset as you look at the cover, you can tell it's got style. A man in a trenchcoat with his back to you balances a sword casually on his shoulder while holding a pistol is bold black on a simple white cover. Cool, right? Then, surface judgement sets in, whispering there's no way the film inside could live up to that oh-look-I'm-sooo-cool image. And in most cases, you'd be dead on. You don't need me to tell you that every film that's thrown a jump kick or leaned past a bullet for the past four years has been trying to ace the Matrix. Which is why Versus picks up its sword and gun, turns its back on all preconcieved notions of what it should be, and heads in a completely different direction.

Dan The Re-Animator
The opening of the movie - along with the bloody opening of an unfortunate samurai's opponent - tells the viewer that strewn across our world are various portals to the 'other side'. Our samurai protagonist has, for the sake of plot, found himself in Japan's portal - the Forest of Resurrection. Of course, the nameless bushido warrior has discovered the forest's name not to be just a cute moniker to draw in tourists; here, the dead rise from this George Romero State Park as flesh-starved zombies. After making sure the pack of undead harassing him are doubly dead, the samurai runs into a mysterious man, no doubt the source of these coffin-dodgers. Trying to solve this problem with his sword leaves the poor ronin ripped in half. His last vision is of another challenger approaching his killer, clad in black, his face obscured...

Flash forward to the present day. Dashing through the same forest are two prisoners, their status indicated via the word LAWBREAKER stenciled on their jumpsuits in huge red letters. Making it to a clearing, they meet a gang of Yakuza. Apparently, the Yaks' boss agreed to help spring the jailbirds and give them safe passage. Panicked, one of the prisoners wants to flee; while the second-in-command wants to wait for the head honcho since they also kidnapped a girl on his order. Apparently you can have people picked up like groceries when you're big in organized crime.

Taking exception to the rough treatment of the girl, in a heated exchange the second prisoner steals a gun and peels the Yakuza second banana. All present are shocked - even moreso when the previously very dead Japanese mafioso rises with disturbing strength and a taste for his former comrades. After sending him back to his early grave, a yakuza henchman tests this theory by blasting the first prisoner and waiting for him to rise from his grave an altered beast. All signs point to yes, and in the ensuing firefight the second prisoner and the girl escape. Not to be shaken so easily, the gang heads after their quarry. At the same time, two police escorts haul themselves from their wrecked transport and set out to recapture the perps that gave them the slip - with maximum force. Let's not forget that deep in the forest, corpses lie in wait ready to consume cops, crooks, and the convict caught in the middle. What is the importance of the girl? And what of the master of the forest from the beginning of the film? Surely he won't take this incursion lightly...unless he has other plans...

Zombie Jamboree
And so in the bloody battles that follow, Versus begins in earnest. Over the 2-hour runtime you'll be privy to many clever conceits of this action-horror marriage, including gun-wielding undead, superpowered zombie yakuza, and countless sly gags from the movie's staunch refusal to do anything without a smirk and a raised eyebrow - the prisoner knocking his galpal unconcious before fights so she won't get in the way, or the hilariously evil cops are perfect examples. The most surprising item in the film's arsenal, though, is no one in the flick is referred to by name except the main character; and even then it's the serial number from his jumpsuit. Whether laziness on the movie's part or a deliberate attempt to frustrate any critic discussing the movie's characters, it points out that after most action movies the players all become 'that one guy with the knives' or 'the love interest'.

Although there'll be no confusion about who's who among the cast of Versus. Had this been another brain-dead black-clad battle of bullets and acrobatics, I'd pan it faster than you could say 'dodge this', but in such a wide gallery of rogues, even the so-called comic relief is an exception to the fool in other movies. Tak Sakaguchi as the flippant devil-may-care Prisoner KSC2-303 is easy to root for, but the film is stolen out from under him by the over-the-top upstaging of the brilliant Kenji Matsuda as a knife-wielding Yakuza sadist. If I had my way I'd put up a seperate gallery with nothing but pictures of him, but my sexuality's been in question long enough.

So, if the Evil Dead, splashed with Akira Kurosawa cologne, asked the Matrix to the prom, I'd doubt you'd find a better baby out of wedlock nor a finer reason to make an honest woman out of her than Versus. Taking this one to the clinic isn't even an option - he's got his daddy's love of gore and his mommy's love of wire-fu. And damn if the kid doesn't have style. Here's to neophyte director Ryuhei Kitamura for playing matchmaker to these conflicting genres and making sure he took enough of whatever substance he was using to give his creation some, too.

On the web: Versus 2 DVD edition