and his minions for a final showdown. Prisoner KSC2-303 takes on the minions first and wins, leaving only The Man left. Prisoner KSC2-303 decapitates The Man and rescues The Girl, and both make their escape from The Forest of Resurrection. 99 years later, Earth lies in ruin. The reincarnation of The Man travels through the remains of a city, and eventually confronts Prisoner KSC2-303 and the reincarnated versions of The Man's gang (who now work for KSC2-303). The Girl, held against her will, tells The Man that she should have been on his side 99 years earlier. With nothing left to destroy in this world, Prisoner KSC2-303 asks The Man to take him to the Other Side. The Man and Prisoner KSC2-303 charge at each other and engage in battle one more time. Cast Production Development 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. According to Kitamura, he raised the money to independently produce Versus by borrowing money from friends and family after Producers refused to produce an action film with him because, to them, it was impossible to achieve due to the lack of time and money. Filming was originally planned to last 3 weeks but was extended to 7 months due to weather and financial issues. Casting Tak Sakaguchi was hired for the lead after director Kitamura saw a gag video that featured Sakaguchi. Kitamura's main reason for hiring Sakaguchi was because he had "a beautiful smile;" however, Sakaguchi claims he met Kitamura during a street fight that Sakaguchi was involved in. Kitamura offered him a role in his film after asking him if he'd rather fight in the streets or fight in his films. Kitamura later vouched as well that he met Sakaguchi during a street fight. Influences In the film's North American DVD/Blu-ray audio commentary, Kitamura has stated that Versus pays homage to such films as The Evil Dead and Highlander, which the film has been compared to by some critics. Director Kitamura stated that Versus was inspired by the films of Sam Raimi, John Carpenter, and George Miller. Versus combines elements of multiple genres such as gunplay, martial arts action, chanbara