Junk (2000) May 24, 2007
Posted by Cal in : Blogroll, Horror , trackbackDirector: Atsushi Muroga Cast: Kaori Shimamura, Shu Ehara, Yuji Kishimoto, Miwa Yanagizawa Territory: Japan
In an old, disused chemical plant sanctioned by a contingent of the US military in Japan, a western doctor is reviving a dead woman using a special concoction called DNX. The woman does indeed return to life, but unfortunately tends to be a bit psychotic and has a taste for human flesh. Meanwhile, on the other side of town, a group of amateur jewel thieves and their getaway driver (Kaori Shimamura) are pulling off a heist that will see them comfortably well off for some time. The robbery is successful, although Akira (Shu Ehara) is disabled after being stabbed violently in the foot. The gang arrive early at the rendezvous with their Yakuza fence and his mob and take the time to explore the factory a little. That’s right, it’s the same disused chemical plant where the experiment took place, and there’s a zombie on the loose! Pretty soon, thanks to some totally irresponsible storage of this DNX stuff on a shelf right next to a row of dead bodies, our heroes are overrun with zombies. Things only get worse when the Yakuza show up – they decided to screw over the thieves and take the loot themselves. However, they foolishly ignore the gang’s insistence that the place is swarming with hostile dead and pretty soon you’ve got a situation where the Yakuza are trying to kill the thieves (and vice versa) while the zombies are happily munching on everyone stupid enough to stand still for more than 30 seconds. Then the military send in a team to try to sort the problem out…
Junk is a low-budget shot-on-video Japanese zombie flick. It has some really cringeworthy English language acting – there are a fair few Americans in the film and they don’t seem to be able to carry a line of dialogue. Another problem is one of the Japanese actors is forced to speak in English and he’s unfortunately pretty unintelligible (thankfully, the subtitles are provided for the English language dialogue too, which is usually something I hate but is a blessing here). It’s also a bit on the unbelievable side (even for a zombie movie) and the inclusion of a super-zombie (Miwa Yanagizawa) isn’t really playing by the rules, in my opinion.
However, the main problem I had was that the original zombie is brought back to life with a syringe of this DNX stuff. We see the doctor carefully insert the needle into her arm and administer the shot. One question: how the *censored* is that going to work? Seriously, did anyone think this through? Even the guy playing the doctor should have said, “erm, actually, Mr Director, circulation is a process that ends at the time of death. I don’t think sticking her with a needle is going to do much good.” Anyway, it all kind of redeems itself later when some of the corpses are splashed with the stuff and come back to life, but that lapse in the laws of basic biological science did make me groan.
Anyway. If all this sounds really negative, there are some positives. Despite how it sounds, a couple of the jewel thieves are actually quite likeable, and you can find yourself rooting for their characters. I liked the idea of pitting the Yakuza against both the jewel theives AND the zombies – so that essentially you’ve got three factions trying to kill or eat (or both) each other. Furthermore, there are times when the zombie tension builds quite effectively. These are the slow-moving, brainless variety of zombie, that only gets its way by sheer weight of numbers – later on, there seem to be hundreds of the buggers! The gore effects are also quite good for the budget, and the zombie feeding scenes are suitably nasty.
If you’re willing to put up with a lot of dodgy acting, some rather implausible (and illogical) plotting, and the rather “cold” feel of a film shot on video, you can do a lot worse than Junk. But be warned that it really is just a bit of low-budget fun and no substitute for the truly great zombie films like Dawn of the Dead.
And in case you’re wondering, I’m now all out of Asian zombie flicks (I’m not watching Bio-Cops again for any price!). Normal service will be resumed shortly.
Comments»
Just need to say that JUNK was shot on film, I think 16mm. The reason it looks so awful is because whoever was in charge of the film elements didn’t take very good care of it, a poor non-anamorphic telecine was put on Digibeta, and that was the end of it since it was released direct to video in Japan.
When Unearthed Films bought the rights for the US they were handed a MiniDV tape, so they asked for the film negative to make a brand new anamorphic master. They got it (a “cut master” - as in the film was spliced with glue at every scene change) and found it was in such bad shape that it just wasn’t possible to make a new transfer. So they were back at the DV master, which AFN used, and after watching the UK transfer they felt it was worthless, just an upconversion of the same shoddy master AFN had. The licensee in Japan finally located the original Digibeta and sent that to Unearthed. They were able to save a film sourced trailer for Junk, and it’s anamorphic while the movie itself isn’t.
Anyway, I thought the film was trashy good fun, though your criticism is certainly valid. Pretty similar to the silly but endlessly exciting Italian ‘Dawn’ knock-offs, but with colorful (if one-dimensional) characters and a lot more action than any of the 80’s offerings had. I don’t think it’ll win any awards, even in the zombie genre, but it’s a good example of the genre done right on a low budget.
Thanks for clearing up that “shot on video” mistake - I probably read it on the internet and thought it explained why it looks so bad!
You’re right about the euro horror similarities - the one that springs to my mind most is that factory scene in Zombie Creeping Flesh - it looks really similar.