Movie fight scenes, even ones that are acted by martial arts experts, rarely duplicate what actually transpires on a street or battlefield. After all, they're performed for entertainment, not as actual matters of life or death.

And yet, surrounded by the cast members of Yuji Shimomura's hard-core action flick "Re:Born" at a screening in Tokyo, I felt as though I had wandered into a gathering of an elite fighting unit. These were folks who looked ready to kick ass — which reminded me of the fact that the film's PR guy knows where I live.

Shimomura and lead actor Taku "Tak" Sakaguchi, a genre staple since his starring role in the cult hit "Versus" (2001), are hoping to bring a new kind of action to the screen. Their inspiration for the many fight scenes ("kill scenes" may be the better term for them) are the so-called zero-range combat tactics developed by Yoshitaka Inagawa, the film's fight choreographer. Using short blades instead of traditional Japanese swords, zero-range fighters eliminate opponents as efficiently and fatally as possible at close range.