DEATH TRANCE
Dvd Review

6 years ago when the the now labeled "cult" classic Versus from Ryu Kitamura came on the scene I was expecting to hear more from actor Tak Sakaguchi. His charisma and presence help make that movie such a success. Now he's back and paired up with the action director of Versus, Yuji Shimomura in a fantasy based actioneer where he fights the undead in a forest filled with zombies other other creatures. Sound familiar? Some sites have this erroneously labeled Versus 2 which that movie is on its way later this year or early next.
The movie is definitely fun, highly stylized post apocalyptic journey but overall feels a little empty. Maybe its trying to hard to be culty or the exposition is not well enough explained but something is missing to give it the extra oomph. The acting is fantastic overall by Tak and also newcomer Kentaro Seagal. Yep that Seagal. Son of Mr. Steven Seagal. The fight choreography is solid but somewhat repititous due to Tak's fighting style. The attempt at humor usually works but is a little awkward in some parts. Kudos to the soundtrack which is basic metal riffs but fits the movie nicely.
The plot is somewhat thin but from what i got is that Tak's character who is not named steals a sacred coffin guarded by monks in an effort to drag it to a particular place in the forest so he can be granted any wish he wants. After he steals the coffin he is pursued by a surviving monk trainee in an attempt to get it back. Then he is confronted by another man who also wants the coffin and it is stolen from him. While this is going on they encounter spider ninja vampires, zombies, fallen angels? and a little girl that follows along but is never fully explained. By the end he has to raise and confront the Goddess of Destruction.
There is very little dialogue and its basically just fight scene after fight scene with a little silent down time in between with very little exposition. A voice over explaining what was going on would have probably done it tremendous help. One thing i was annoyed with was that Tak fought with a hilted sword the whole movie then finally he pulls it out at the end and its a bullet shooting sword with endless ammunition that he could have used the whole movie!!! There is a cool early scene with a guy that has a huge sword like Nightmare in Soul Calibur but he's taken out fairly easy. It had a lot of solid cool ideas just not fully fleshed out enough for my liking. It is based in an unknown time frame but assuming by the machine gun katanas, rocket launcher and motorcycle its a post apocalyptic time in Japan.
By the end of the movie i was entertained overall even though somewhat bored by the finale, but somehow still looking forward to the upcoming rumored sequels. If you absolutely love this type of movie and cant wait till Versus 2 then i definitely recommend checking it out but if you were so-so on Versus then i would stay away cuz its definitely not on par with it.