'Junk'

*deepbreath**siiiiigh*

... why did I ever think a movie named Junk would be something other than precisely that? I'm gullible. Why did I even pick up this movie in the first place? Well, let me tell you how: I was bored, told a friend to give me a letter of the alphabet at random, it turned up J and I started browing the J page on the movie index at crunchyroll. Why did I agree to watch a movie with this name and this cover? It reminded me of Evil Dead and I thought it was a horror comedy. Why am I not laughing? Because it's a piece of junk, alright.

Despite having been made in 2000, Junk (before anyone asks, no, it's not porn) will surely summon forth bad memories of cheesy 80's action flicks. Atsushi Muroga wrote and directed this with the fewest effects available and managing to reunite an amount of talent as small as possible: mostly first-timers or actors who actually make a living by performing in crap such as this.

So here's the plotline, and it's as bad as they come: a Japanese-American project is being conducted in an abandoned factory somewhere in Japan, with the objective of bringing people back to life. It backfires, and their very first subject -a woman who spends 80% of the flick naked and the remaining being plain irritating- turns into a zombie. She then proceeds into turning the American doctor, the American nurse and a crowload of dead bodies gathered there for the experiment into zombies too. American military call the Japanese doctor who created the project to shut the whole thing down. Meanwhile, a group of three guys and one girl robbed a jewelry store and plan on selling their loot to the yakuza. The meeting point? The abandoned factory, where we finally have a big showdown with the robbers, the yakuza, the American military and zombies fighting, shooting and nibbling at each other.

I should really read about movies on IMDb before watching them. Had I read something similar to what I just typed, I would've never, unless I was desperately bored, watched this. But I did, and so, here come spoilers and a lot of cursing.

It's hard to point out good aspects in Junk. Because there aren't many, if at all. It's not credible at all, but I doubt that was the point: the American military send in one officer and a Japanese doctor whom as far as we're concerned had very little to no training (judging by the way he shoots, my money's on the later) to start a self-destruct process in an abandoned factory packed full of zombies. Right. If this had a drop of realism, the place would be nuked. Or at the very least, the SWAT would move in. They're called to action in other movies for a lot less. This isn't the main plothole though, this is: the main zombie isn't a zombie. Because zombies can't type on computers, speak, change haircolors at will and will be dead once the head's blown up. This bitch is hit, stabbed with an iron, shot several times, cut in half, shocked and finally explodes along with the place, and by the movie's end her charred skeleton is still alive!

Now I can accept if you tell me she isn't a zombie, she just carries the virus, and is in fact some sort of mutated creature which was once human, but no more. You can tell me she's virtually immortal. But this is popular knowledge: brain's gone, she's gone, period. Nothing, except maybe the mighty cockroach, survive without a brain. And that's why you should aim for the head, right? If the head is gone, it's gone! What in crow's name was alive in her, that she could still move, the marrow in her bones? Or are screenwriters so desperate for an "evil-never-dies" twist to the story they'll even rape the laws of anatomy?!

Of course they are. How many times did crow-damn Jason come back?

Another thing that'll make you laugh is the quality of dialog. Half of it is in Japanese and half in English. Only the Japanese speak Japanese, and the Americans speak English, even when they're talking to each other. Except when the Japanese speak English too, and proceed to horribly murder the language. Thank crow this has the English subtitles, because if I was gonna depend on my hearing alone to understand what the Japanese doctor says everytime he speaks in English, I wouldn't get half what's going on. It's hilarious that all the English people understand Japanese, but only enough to get the meaning of what the Japanese are saying. Then they answer in English and the Japanese also understand what they're saying, but then reply in Japanese. It's batshit!

Another thing that will surely remind you of bad 80's action flicks is the can of preserved cliché they popped open when constructing characters. The girl robber, Jun, is your common action woman: black leather, tattoo, likes fast cars and and loud music, is an impeccable feminist, but ends up being the sweetest person. Then there's Akira, your common Japanese bloke who dyed his hair blond. A wuss for 80% of the flick, he ends up coming back for Jun, and parttaking in one of the cheesiest, typically 80's endings I have ever seen: he gets Jun the car she's been desiring, which is an awesome black sports car, and they both drive away into an endless road with the loot they stole, after blowing up the factory. Yowza. The Americans in this couldn't be any more American if this was written in West Virginia by a Chicago native, produced in Texas by someone from Maine and debuted on NYC. And Nakada, the Japanese doctor-turned-action hero, who is tortured by the death of his wife so much he decided to start a project to revive her! What a crock of bull!!

Now when I spoke about Junk to a friend of mine, and described firsthand the horrors I had witnessed at the hands of this flick, he told me maybe they were going for a classic. They're trying to purposedly make it look like it was made in the 80's, and hence the hideous plot, horrible casting and dialog that sounds like crap. My question: why? I think we all agree some of the best action movies ever belong in the 80's and early 90's. Go no further than Terminator (1984). But the 80's also spawned much, much worse movies. Movies that this one emulates. Memories of them should have been left buried. Plus, this may also remind you of Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers, if for nothing else, because the SFX is nearly as bad. No rubber suits, but if you believe you can pose-jump out a window and avoid an explosion, you've seen one episode of sentai heroes too many.

But hey, maybe the movie is a satire. Maybe it's supposed to be bad. You know, like Bad Taste (1987) was a satire (or so we choose to believe)? Maybe Junk is a satire to zombie flicks! Well if it is indeed, it's a really very bad one. Shaun of the Dead (2004) is a satire to zombie flicks. Things like Junk and perhaps Braindead (1992), which very closely resembles it only with more gore, are what we like to call "splatters". I hate splatters. I like zombies, but I hate splatters. I assume a fan of Braindead would find this a little flat, even boring, compared to things we've seen in the past from that particular genre. Still, even in its genre, it's a bad effin movie.

Sound? Not so great. Acting? Very poor. Overall, I wish I hadn't seen it.