Review Junk

divemaster13

Member: Rank 4
Time again for Monday's review...

Junk
(2000)
Directed by Atsushi Muroga
Starring Shimamura Kaori, Nobuyuki Asano, and Tate Gouta
In Japanese with English subtitles
Film: 3 stars (out of 5)

Nowdays we’ve got all sorts of interesting zombies. From World War Z to Train to Busan to Shaun of the Dead to 28 Days Later (I know, I know). Fast zombies; clever zombies; funny zombies; Romero remake zombies, graphically thrilling zombies…it’s all part of the fairly recent zombie craze.

However, back in the day when I started getting interested in Asian film (about 2002), there weren’t that many Asian zombie movies to choose from. When looking through internet message boards and review sites for suggestions, the same 4 films kept being mentioned. Three Japanese films (Junk, Versus, and Wild Zero) and the Hong Kong effort Bio-Zombie. Junk is a semi-worthy effort that falls somewhere in the middle. I enjoyed it much more than Wild Zero (which was too stupid for words) and more than Versus (which wins in style points but quickly becomes repetitious) but not quite as much as Bio-Zombie (which has that crazy Hong Kong humor that I like).

Anyway, on to Junk. We are treated to a prologue that borrows heavily from Re-Animator, even down to an anxious scientist/doctor injecting fluorescent green goop into a corpse. And just like Re-Animator, the dead do not wake up in a good mood.

The film proper opens with four 20-somethings pulling an armed robbery of a jewelry store. They plan on fencing the loot with a local Yakuza boss, who arranges to meet them at an abandoned U.S. military base.

These scenes are intercut with a couple of U.S. military types planning on how to cover up the strange experiments referred to in the prologue. It seems that the military decommissioned the base perfectly content to leave a few zombies shuffling about and beaker after beaker of the green goop just sitting around. Not good planning. (Strange that the entire military knowledge of such top secret groundbreaking research seems to be 1 colonel and 1 sergeant left to their own devices to clean up and cover up.). The two pressure the Japanese doctor who contributed to the research to help them.

So you can see where this is heading. The jewel thieves are on their way to the base, the Yakuza gang is on its way to the base, and the military clean-up crew is not far behind.

Before the Yakuza can even get there, the 4 thieves have been pared down to 3. The leader has already become zombie food as we get our first real look at the reanimated dead feasting on human flesh. The Yakuza show up and express typical skepticism when confronted by the hysterical thieves shouting off that the place is crawling with zombies. But they soon learn that they should have listened.

The body count increases. The zombie horde increases as well, not only as the recently killed join the ranks of the undead but also due to a laboratory mishap. (Note to self: If I ever find myself in a room with a) 20 or 30 corpses and b) shelves of reanimating goop everywhere, do not; I repeat, DO NOT machine-gun up the room spraying reanimating goop all over the corpses.)

Enough plot. How are the zombies? Well, they are slow. Slower than slow. But with all the dead ends of the laboratory building they manage to feed okay. Lots of biting off chunks of neck and shoveling of entrails into hungry mouths. Good brain splatters from head shot kills. Points for all that. The zombies range from pallor make-up to all out rot. Not bad for low budget. The base is an effective setting. (Abandoned military bases are, by definition, tres creepy). So points for that as well.

Deduct points for the “it’s only a cat” cliché and a couple of “false-scare-sigh-of-relief- then-BAM!-real-scare” scenes. Deduct points for the Japanese doctor whose English is next to impossible to understand (and he gets no subtitling help). And I know we’re not really supposed to analyze the plot, but I’d think that taking on hordes of the undead would warrant more than a 2-man clean-up crew.

So, all in all, a low-budget Grade-B zombie flick that certainly won’t win any acting awards. Passes the time, but don’t expect too much. 3 stars (out of 5).

The DVD is non-anamorphic 1.66:1 letterbox. Audio is Japanese DD 2.0. The DVD generates English subtitles when Japanese is spoken and Japanese subtitles when English is spoken. The case says that the subs are removable, but I’m pretty sure this is an error as I could find no way to turn them off.

There are trailers for Junk, Evil Dead Trap 2, and 3 Guinea Pig related films (Mermaid in a Manhole, Android of Notre Dame, and Making of Guinea Pig). An image gallery shows posters and movie stills. Also included are production notes, which are basically press kit blurbs, and cast and crew biographies/filmographies (English text).

Previous reviews:
2/13: A Tale of Two Sisters
2/20: Comrades, Almost a Love Story
2/27: A Chinese Tall Story
3/6: The Mystery of Rampo
3/9: Clean
3/13: The Bride with White Hair
3/20: No Blood, No Tears
3/27: Angel Dust
4/3: A Chinese Torture Chamber Story
4/10: A Moment to Remember
4/17: Re-Cycle
5/1: Jasmine Women
 
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