Customer Reviews

Junk

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

I had pretty low expectations of this film before watching it. Rarely is Junk mentioned in the same class and given the same amount of admiration as Wild Zero or Versus, other recent Japanese Zombie films. Junk was released prior to the aforementioned two other films and spearheaded the new wave of Japanese zombie films of the new millennia. I was expecting this film to be cheap-looking and boring but instead Junk turned out to be a wildly fun and inventive stab at the zombie genre.

3 men and a woman agree to pull a heist on behalf of the Yakuza by robbing a jewellery store. In exchange for the jewellery the yakuza promise a hefty sum of cash. The meeting point is set at a remote former military site about an hour's drive outside of town. The robbers arrive at the base and while waiting for the Yakuza walk around and find out that it may not be as deserted as they originally thought, as they stumble upon a lab containing various chemicals and a room containing a number of bodies lying on the floor, wrapped in white sheets. Unbeknownst to them, the military base has for some time been the site of a project by the name of DNX that has as a goal of bringing back the dead to life. As the dead rise, the robbers and the Yakuza's struggle to stay alive begins.

Junk borrows elements from so many other zombie films that it's hard to keep a track of, the most obvious influences in particular being Fulci's Zombie, Re-animator and Return of the living dead. The zombies bear a striking resemblance to Romero's, with their bluish skin and slow limping shuffle. They die the exactly the same way, through a gunshot wound to the head. In other ways however, the film is quite unique within the zombie genre, a combination undead film and high-octane Asian action shoot-em-up. Zombies and the Yakuza make for an entertaining mix. I also liked the idea of a "head zombie", who is not dumb like the others but instead acts as a brain for all of the undead, able to de-activate bombs and outsmart the U.S. military. This head zombie is not a ghoul of rotting flesh like the others but a beautiful clear-skinned Japanese woman who spends most of her time prancing around naked on screen and taunting her former husband, the scientist behind the DNX project who brought her back to life. Most entertaining of all is a battle between the head zombie and the female robber, a climactic show-down between two beautiful asian women with scores to settle.

The action is unrelenting in this film, a stable of Asian cinema. Junk doesn't overstay its welcome the way the 120-minute Versus does, instead delivering a brisk 83-minute package of gun-toting gangster action and zombie gore. Highly underrated but highly recommended.

It's difficult to put a fresh spin on zombie flicks these days, but this is one film that is refreshingly shocking. Start the premise with young punks heisting jewels, and meeting with Yakuza hotshots at an abandoned military base to sell their wares. As the deal begins to go awry, this sounds like the beginnings of a hot "young punks vs murderous gangster" flick. Yeah, we've seen this plot over and over, but these thugs about to take part in a gangland war are unaware that the military base is not THOROUGHLY abandoned. Experiments in reanimation have been in the works, and these sleeping corpses would like to feast on do-gooders or evil-doers, whoever is nearest to their slothlike chompers.

The blood and guts are plentiful. Nothing overly impressive in the way of special effects, but the zombies' body movements and "chew factor" are unusually creepy. I've seen so many zombie flicks that try to scare you with graphic gore, but few that deliver genuinely scary sequences and intriguing characters.

If you love zombie flicks, this is a MUST! If you are a rookie Zombie Watcher, this flick might just get you wanting to feast on more "Living Dead" spectaculars!

Junk is a Japanese zombie horror film, the film looked cheap and the gore was great but the film was deffinently bad but still fun to watch. A drug called DNX that is developed by a group of scientist looks simular to the serum thats used in re-animator to raise the dead and is also used for a top secret military project, the problem is one of the test subjects a naked Japanese chick escapes and attacks some of the scientists by eating them. Soon a bunch of jewel theives and Yakuza meet up in an abandoned warehouse but what they don't realise is that its the same place where the scientist are conducting there experiments so alot of flesh eating zombies appear. The film has some action scenes along with zombie horror that was done with a trashy european horror style like the lucio fulci films, most of the acting was awfull especialy the scientist who helps out the american soldiers most of the time I couldn't undurstand a word he was saying in english because of his thick Japanese accent. The film was filled with cliches but still I liked it for being a bad low budget gory zombie film that was funny as hell.

Even with a relatively low budget, Japanese horror films such as this one have an abundance of style. "Junk" opens in a familiar way. Well, familiar if you've seen Zombie 3. Pretty much the same goings on here with a few significant differences. When I was first told about this, it was described to me as "the Japanese Zombie 3". Yeah there's the opening scene and a few other things as well but believe me "Junk" is its own entity. The military is behind all of the experiments that led to the incidents (of course) that opened the film and now they need some help to cope before it all gets out of control. They turn to Doctor Nakata. He was originally one of the inspirations for the creation of the serum that brings the dead back to life, called DNX, but with its dangerous properties and the militarise misuse of his creation, he decided to leave it all behind and go for a "normal life."

On the other side of the film, we have four small time crooks don masks and steal over 100 million yen from a classy jewelry store. They've worked out a plan to fence the jewels for cash, courtesy of a big-time yakuza kingpin, at some abandoned military site in the countryside. This is, of course, the same place where the resurrection experiments have been taking place. As we learn in another plot thread, the scientist originally responsible for this whole mess is now being drafted to go back and clean up the mess--by setting off a bomb that will level the building and everything around it. The jewelry deal goes sour, and the four thugs are about to get riddled with bullets when the zombies stagger in. Evidently our gangster friends have not seen enough zombie movies, and so they waste ridiculous amounts of ammo on torso shots.

"Junk" doesn't rise much above delivering the basics--zombies, violence, gore--but I had to smile at a few of the clever moments, as when the "queen zombie" keeps on coming despite having been sliced in half with a shovel. On the minus side, there's a subplot involving a used-car dealer that plays out like a shaggy-dog story, and the English-speaking characters have some of the most wooden dialogue and acting imaginable. It doesn't help that the scientist, who is Japanese, speaks such thickly-accented English that his dialogue is close to incomprehensible. Movies like this are critic-proof. They exist to deliver action, blood, and surprises, and the people who want to see them will see them without me needing to recommend them. That said, I should point out that "Junk" belongs near the bottom of a list of such movies, the sort of thing you only rent after you've already seen/own a couple of classics.

This really wasn't all that bad it suprised me, The intro is good and really gets the the zombie action quick. Great effort and I recommend renting it first or just buy it.

Matthew has already written the defacto review, but being a horror fan, and a zombie horror fan inparticular, I thought I'd add my two cents.

While Junk is not a good movie in the typical sense, it is still a great time, and you will be entertained, assuming this is your cup of tea. This is the type of movie me and my college buddies would cram into a dorm room to watch.

Not only does Junk borrow or pay tribute to Re-Animator, George Romero and Lucio Fulci, it also pays tribue to the Resident Evil videogames in a very classic "Resident Evil" way. If you catch these references Junk is well worth your time. If you're looking for something along the quality of the more well known Ringu or Juon, lower your expectations and you may enjoy it.

Junk does contain some terrible editing, bad acting, gigantic plot holes, wrong references (someone in the crew confused a porshe with a corvette) and at times, cheesy effects. While the gore affects are good, it lacks the frightening intensity of Romero's films. (Taking place totally in broad daylight may have something to do with that.) Being eaten alive is a basic fear going back as far into human history as one can go. What movies like Jaws and Dawn of the Dead do for making people feel afraid, Junk fails to do. It does have some tense moments, just not enough of them.

Ah but not all is lost. What the film does a great job of is giving us a credible heroine to cheer for, and while the editing and production values may be subpar, the director makes up for this with excellent pacing that moves the adventure along. It is a brisk film that doesn't get bogged with with dialogue or plot intricacies. Honestly, it went by a little too fast. I was wishing it was just a little longer because while it is a typical zombie movie with classic zombie rules (shooting the head is the only way to kill them, they shuffle and move slowly while displaying huge feats of strength etc.), the director spins his zombie tale very affectively.

Believe it or not Junk does contain some social commentary, not unlike Romero's films, though obviously they are of a Japanese perspective. I think most may be lost to me because I am American, but I didn't find the references all that deep. But nonetheless I think they are there considering there was really no reason at all to include Americans in the film, and the blame for the zombies is largely pointing at it as an American operation. Perhaps that is how the Japanese see us sometimes. The Americans certainly were "zombie-like" in their acting. :P

Overall I really enjoyed it, and I'd recommend it to any horror fan. It would've been interesting to see what Atsushi Muroga could've done with a bigger budget.

after reading all the hype about VERSUS another asian horror movie that borrows heavily from american cinema/concepts, i was hugely disapointed, but when i rented JUNK from my video store
i actually had a good time watching this schlocker, junk blatently rips off ideas from famed directors; romero (day of he dead) lucio fulci of ZOMBIE. (hell, even some of the music sounds excatly like ZOMBIE 3)

but nonetheless isn't bad for a cheesy c-movie. the zombies were more "convincing" than paul anderson's disapointing adaptation of resident evil. JUNK doesn't take itself too seriously either, the violence is over-the-top cartoonish regardless of the gory bits and the comic reliefs actually had me rotf.

props to this ambtious director,with a bigger budget and more originality he may be the next john carpenter or romero
(at least in japan.) (0=

Movie starts when some scientist's revive a Asian chick and she eats them. Then it goes to where some gangstaz hold up a jewelry store and steal jewelry then they go to an abandoned factory to meet with a Japanese mafia gang. Then they have a hissy fit with each other then zombies appear. And the only two survivors in the zombie factory is a blond dude and another Asian chick. Then two operatives are sent to investigate the situation and one of the dudes finds out his girlfriend is a all powerful zombie and she kills him. Now the other two survivors must now battle zombies and all that.

If you like Lucio's ZOMBI 3 (the music is so simular as well as the zombies), then you are in a for a treat. The funniest thing in this movie is when the scientist Asian guy is speaking English, badly. So bad I'd understand the Asian language better. This is a lovely, happy, gory film :). With a desent plot, and two of the hottest Asian women i have ever seen, this movie will surely please you.

One of the best Italian zombie flicks... except it was made in Japan! This isn't great filmmaking by any means, but it throws so much at you that if you're an exploitation fan you're bound to have fun. Get ready for some terrible acting (especially the english language scenes, delivered obviously from memory by non-english speaking actors), senseless subplots and a whole heaping helping of gore! Homage is paid to Quentin Tarantino, "Re-Animator" and eighties-style splatter. Turn your brain off and have some fun--don't expect award winning, insightful art here. This is just good, over the top fun.

Junk (Atsushi Muroga, 2000)

Short, but entirely satisfying, Japanese zombie flick that pays homage to the classic seventies and eighties American/Italian living dead movies without ever feeling derivative. Muroga (Gun Crazy) delivers the goods here with style.

Simple plot: a gang of jewel thieves meet up with their Yakuza employers in an abandoned factory in order to deliver the haul from their latest heist. Except, of course, that pretty much everyone is planning to double-cross pretty much everyone else, and just to make things complicated, the factory is an old Army research lab that was working on reanimating the dead, and perhaps things worked better than they thought...

When it comes right down to it, there's not a great deal most of us ask for from zombie flicks. We want them to be gory, to have at least a semblance of suspense, and not really mess with the paradigm all that much. We've gotten so inured to bad zombie movies that when we come across one that's got a solid story, great acting, and competency in pace, we start getting confused, I guess, if it doesn't have a big name in the field on it. (And let's face it, honestly, even the big names in the field have never been known for attracting the finest actors, with a very few exceptions.)

Yeah, the movie does have its drawbacks, most notably an incredibly cheesy scene towards the climax, but that should in no way prevent you from finding this one at your earliest opportunity if you're a zombie fan. How on Earth did Tartan Asia Extreme pass this up? ****