Death Trance (2005)

Excellent, a Must See

It isn't all that great, actually. Really cheesy and very predicable of how certain scenes are gonna turn play out. However, I guess that's the charm of it all, because I would consider this one of my guilty pleasures.

Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.

There's a more than satisfactory amount of boom-boom in the movie's trim running time.

An apocalyptic samurai, ninja, sci-fi western fantasy with characters that wouldn't look out of place in 'Soul Calibur', 'Mortal Kombat' and various other Japanese RPG videogames, that is how I can best describe this eye popping flick, odd title though.The main star here is again the ultra cool Tak Sakaguchi, here in a kind of supernatural samurai mode as a mythic character who drags a coffin behind him everywhere he goes (and an odd little girl in your typical Japanese 'The Ring' spooky fashion) as he basically slaughters all who stand before him. His name is 'Grave' and he searches for the ultimate battle...rock on that!This film is pretty similar to 'Versus' in the location (a forest), it stars Tak as some kind of super hero again and the fact the story is really quite bizarre and makes no real sense, plus it appears to be in a place and time that don't exist. So basically Tak has nicked the coffin from a temple and is taking it to a spot in the forest so it can grant him anything he wants...it seems the coffin can do this. Or does it? a monk is also after Tak and the coffin to stop it being opened and releasing the Goddess of destruction who will kick start an apocalypse...that's not a good thing. The monk is aided by...wait for it...Steven Seagal Jr. yep that's right, or his real name Kentaro Seagal (sounds like a 'Mortal Kombat' character), all of them battle bandits and non human creatures to reach their respective goals.The film is fast and furious with fights breaking out all over the show and many of them being...well kinda average actually. Most seem too frantic and you can see the hits aren't making contact, also to be honest Tak isn't really a well built guy, he's cool but he doesn't really come across as tough and never really looks like he could really be whipping hordes of bad guys endlessly.The look of the film is really what sets this apart, all the costumes are a kind of cross between traditional Japanese period wear with 'Mad Max' 'Water World' 'Conan' 'Krull' and many other fantasy type films throw in, it all looks highly stylish. Add to this a complete 'Army of Darkness' approach to the dark humour, camera work, extreme supernatural entities and wickedly evil looking weapons which do also include a kind of samurai boomstick.Put it this way, the director of this film is Yuji Shimomura and he was the action director for 'Versus' (eh eh...you see, you see I came full circle there) and 'Devil May Cry 3' so I think you can get the gist of what I'm trying to explain here, the film is pretty much an explosive visual video game. Its probably better than 'Versus' in my personal view as I reeeally didn't follow that a tall, this is easier to follow plus it looks ace. I dunno why but the Japanese are just good at this kind of stuff, had this been a Hollywood flick with the usual overpaid names it would have been trash.7/10

Not even the title "Versus 2", under which it did play at the Fantasy Filmfest in Stuttgart/Germany, could fool anybody, that this is more than a piece of crap. Only thing this has in common with Versus, is the main actor here.Other than that, don't look for a decent script (for a b-movie that is, not an actual movie, of course) nor decent acting nor decent humour nor decent anything. It's just plain stupid. And it's a shame, because it does start promising enough and there is a funny moment here and there ... but not nearly enough to grant this movie more than two stars ... it's still a waste of time!

I must say, i was quite disappointed with this one, as versus was sooooo great. This one is justlike a coffee , brewed up a second or third time, and it tastes bad.....i prefer to watch the original versus 100 times than this crap. the whole movie bored the hell out of me, while versus was so great and crazy, loaded with anticipation for whats to come in the next second all the way through, this is just lame....sorry, i cant tell you to go see this in the cinema or even rent the DVD, i really cant. ........... ........ ........... ...................... xxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxxxxawful awful awful

So what can I say about Death Trance, personally I loved it. I am huge fan of anime and most importantly of the final fantasy series and to see someone have the balls to pull off this sort of genre is a statement in itself. Unfortunately we do get the bad apples like "ultraviolet". The overall story is comprehensible to a certain point, only real problem I see was there was not enough back story to support what is going on. It's like being kidnapped and strapped onto a roller-coaster with a blind fold on, you know what's going on around you but you're not exactly sure how you even got there in the first place. Tak Sakaguchi does well as Grave, his demeanor suited this character more so than his counter part in "versus". The supporting cast do a great job of filling the void of this somewhat empty world and in typical Sakaguchi fashion the fight scenes can be somewhat lengthy. But seriously seeing a lone samurai smacking the crap out of Zombies with a stick in a forest full of vampiric spidermen is just classic. The heavy metal music sets the mood for the battles and fit in perfectly. It's not the greatest movie in the world but I guarantee you play this at a party and people will have their eyes glued. Death Trance's special fx is without doubt AMAZING, no ands ifs or buts. If the lack of story is what hinders the movie, the SFX more than make up for that. If you're looking to run through a quick final fantasy-esquire like story then rent it at blockbuster. If you really like it then keep it and pay the rest. That's what I'm doing, this is definitely a good "unknown" movie to pull out on your friends. Overall I dig this movie, they stepped out and tried something new with this movie and I think they pull it off nicely.9/10and that's the final word.