VERSUS 2-Disc Blu-ray with Ultimate Versus Extended Cut Hits 10/8
Arrow Video will release Ryûhei Kitamura’s Versus on Blu-ray on December 8th. Newly restored in 2K from original film elements (approved by Kitamura), the two-disc set includes the original cut and the 2004 extended cut, Ultimate Versus.
Chris Malbon designed the new cover art; the original poster is on the reverse side.
DISC 1: VERSUS
- Original lossless Japanese 5.1 and 2.0 stereo audio and English 2.0 stereo audio
- Optional English subtitles
- Audio commentary by Audio commentary by Kitamura, cast and crew
- Audio commentary by Kitamura and the cast and crew
- New visual essay on Kitamura by Japanese cinema expert Jasper Sharp
- Behind Versus, a two-part behind-the-scenes documentary exploring the production
- First Contact: Versus Evolution, a featurette exploring the film’s origins
- Tak Sakaguchi’s One-Man Journey, an archival featurette on the actor’s visit to the 2001 Japan Film Festival in Hamburg
- Film festival screening footage
- Team Versus, a brief look inside the Napalm Films office
- Deep in the Woods: Featurette with interviews with Kitamura, cast and crew
- The Encounter, an archival interview with editor Shûichi Kakesu
- Deleted scenes with audio commentary by Kitamura, cast and crew
- Nervous and Nervous 2, two “side story” mini-movies featuring characters from the main feature
- Featurette on the making of Nervous 2
- Versus FF Version, a condensed, 20-minute recut of the film
- Multiple trailers
- Image gallery
DISC 2: ULTIMATE VERSUS
- Original lossless Japanese 6.1 and 2.0 stereo audio and English 6.1 and 2.0 stereo audio
- Optional English subtitles
- Audio commentary by Kitamura, cast and crew
- Sakigake! Otoko versus Juku: Featurette on newly shot Ultimate Versus material
FIRST PRESSING ONLY: Illustrated collector’s booklet with new writing on the film, a reprinted interview with Kitamura, and Kitamura’s notes on the making of the film.
Pre-order HERE.
Directed by Ryûhei Kitamura (Midnight Meat Train, Downrange, No One Lives), the film stars Tak Sakaguchi, Hideo Sakaki, Chieko Misaka, and Kenji Matsuda.
Written by Kitamura with Yudai Yamaguchi (Meatball Machine), it begins when a mysterious face-off in a wooded clearing between two escaped convicts and a carload of sharply dressed yakuza holding a beautiful woman captive ends in hails of bullets and showers of blood. The location for this violent encounter is the mythic Forest of Resurrection, the site of the 444th portal of the 666 hidden gates that link this earthly domain to the netherworld – and it didn’t get this name for nothing. As one of the surviving prisoners escapes with the girl into the darkness of the forest, disgruntled gangsters soon become the least of their worries as an earlier battle between a lone warrior against hordes of zombie samurai is carried over from a millennium ago into the present day…
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