Junk

I like Junk: sure, it's extremely derivative stuff (female super-zombie aside, of course), but it has absolutely no pretensions, delivering fans of your more traditional shuffling undead all the gut-munching, brain-blasting action that they could ask for.

The plot sees a gang of amateur jewel thieves (including sexy getaway driver Saki) bite off more than they can chew when they arrange their meeting with a Yakuza fence and his men at an abandoned factory: the derelict building is, in fact, a top secret army base where experiments in raising the dead have resulted in flesh-eating zombies, and it's not long before the criminals are fighting for their lives against hordes of mouldy walking cadavers.

This weak set up is simply an excuse for a series of violent gun-fights and bloody encounters with manky zombies, so it is easy to forgive the silly script, many glaring plot-holes and terrible acting (particularly from a handful of westerners, playing US Army dudes). Director Atsushi Muroga (who also directed jewellery-heist-gone-wrong action flick Score) wisely keeps the action flowing thick and fast, and ensures that gore-hounds are kept happy with plenty of splattery effects.

Eventually, things get very daft indeed, with the aforementioned super-zombie stealing the show in the film's finale: wearing thigh high kinky boots, this surprisingly sexy corpse runs rings around the surviving gang members, before being shot in the head. Unfortunately, this only makes matters worse: the she-zombie becomes even stronger (and, inexplicably, albino!), fighting on after having been completely cut in half!!!

Cool, crazy, and covered in blood, this undemanding undead actioner is recommended to those who want to switch off their brain and simply enjoy some gory mayhem.

In an abandoned factory on the Japanese island of Okinawa, the U.S. army secretly developed a serum called "DNX" that is able to bring the dead back to life. Something went wrong and all scientists were killed. Now meet Saki and her gang. They just robbed a jeweller and are on their way to meet some Yakuza for a big deal. Guessed their meeting point? It doesn't take long time and an army of bloodthirsty zombies is after them. Soon everybody is running and fighting for his life...

20 years after the heydays of ultra-gory Italian zombie movies, the Japanese start to produce somehow very similar movies like this one. Heavily influenced by such films as George A. Romero's zombie trilogy, Italian and Spanish shockers from the late 70's and early 80's and the 1992 Japanese film "Living Dead in Tokyo Bay", this is a fun splatter film, and as such it delivers what fans would expect. The gory special effects are done very well most of the time - if you can't stand dismemberment, heads blown into pieces and gut-munching zombies, stay far away! On the other side, splatter movie fans will have plenty of fun with this movie.

"Junk" is as it's own name suggests, well junk really. A low budget Japanese zombie film that can neither impress with great visual effects nor strong acting or plot. But what does do and does well in my opinion, is to recreate the feeling and entertainment value of eighties Italian zombie flicks. In other words "Junk" is trashy fun.

After successfully pulling of a jewelry heist the group of four robbers head of towards an abandoned warehouse where the supposed buyer would be. Unknowingly to both parties, that same place was the dumping ground for a failed American military experiment on bringing the dead back to life. Needless to say what happens when our heroes arrive. It's a simple well known plot that doesn't demand any form of thinking. You just sit-down with a beer-pack and some popcorn in hand and enjoy the on screen carnage. The unpretentious design is what holds "Junk's" charm and of course the violence does also help in that matter.

The acting again in the spirit of Italian horror leaves something to be desired. The Japanese actors did relatively well for this sort of film. Which basically means they didn't get on my nerves with absurd performances or just monotonic line reading. American actors on the other hand were awful, unbearable. Director Atsushi Muroga should have written their characters off plot and sticked with only Japanese actors. The reason for the bad performance does not fully fall on the actors's hands. In this case it's easy to see that the language barrier and Muroga's inability to properly direct the English speaking cast due to his own apparent lack of knowledge in that language are the true problems.

The action is fairly good. Practically most of the movie's running time is filled with shootouts, zombie attacks or both combined. Muroga keeps a fast pace and with a short running time "Junk" doesn't get boring. As any other zombie movie so is this one packed with gore. Necks bitten, legs and arms cut off, people being eaten, heads smashed it's got the needed ingredients to deliver a fun experience.

Atsushi Muroga' "Junk" makes for a delightful yet forgettable zombie film. Mainstream audience should definitely pass the chance on seeing it. But highly recommendable to fans of the trashy low-budget horror genre.

Junk (2000) was one of the new wave zombie films to come from Japan during the turn of the century. Like the others it was made on the cheap but highly entertaining. This film's about an experiment gone awry (can't those scientists get anything right?). The gore level is very high and it features two very unlikely heroes and some hot Japanese ladies. Why can't they make zombie films like this in the United States instead of rubbish like Resident Evil (which parts of this movie were taken from). Junk (like Score) was partially shot in English. I love this movie and I know you will to.

Highly recommended

George A. Romero would be pleased.

Did I mention there were two hot Japanese ladies in the picture?

A group of jewel thieves is to meet some Yakuza members at an abandoned facility to hock the hot ice...little did anyone seem to know that this "facility" was a former military installation that was doing work on the dead, namely - bringing them back to life. Guess it worked, 'cuz now the place is crawling with the undead. The jewelry deal goes bad, and now we have some people to supply lunch for the zombies...

JUNK is a pretty cool zombie film. Nothing really ground-breaking or spectacular, and seems to be much more related to the American, Romero-type zombie films than the typically whacked-out Asian stuff. The story is pretty simple, there's plenty of gore to go around, and the film is never really self-indulgent or too serious. A fun way to spend a couple of hours, but not a "great" film either. I personally tend to like JUNK less than most others that I talk to....still would recommend a look- 7.5/10