Reviewed by BRYAN SCHUESSLER
Junk was a film that I picked up at an used bookstore, solely based on the way the cover of the dvd looked. It also was put out by Unearthed Films, the same company that put out the Guinea Pig Series box set, Pinnochio 964, Rubber’s Lover, and Ichi-1 (prequel to Ichi the Killer-but not so good!), and countless other Japanese gore-fests. So, I decided to take a semi-educated gamble on this film. The back of the box mentioned the film paying homage to Romero’s zombie films.
Well, after viewing it, they were right! It started out a wee-bit slow, as most films due in my book, but after the initial 18-25 minutes of “plot”, the movie kicks in to high gear with non-stop blood and gore. My only real complaint with this film is the annoying English spoken dialogue that is terrible! The print I purchased had Japanese subtitles throughout the film whenever someone spoke in English and the Japanese that spoke English were terrible actors, but that is not what I was looking for in this film. I was looking for gore and violence and it completely succeeded on that level.
I love Japanese gore films…The plot is simple: a gang of thieves rob a jewelry store and meet the local Yakuza at an “abandoned” industrial-type warehouse or facility on the harbor. But they didn’t realize until too late that it is a military facility that experimented with the dead and turned them into zombies. SOLD! That is all the plot I need to enjoy a gory bloodbath! I was laughing out-loud at some of the inventive splatter scenes. I thoroughly enjoyed this film.
The film was directed by Atsushi Muroga and came out in 2000. The Japanese title of the film is “Junk: Shiryo-gari“. This was not his first film and was not his last. He directed a film entitled SCORE in 1995 and it won two Japanese Film Festival awards. There are hundreds (wishful thinking??)of zombie flicks out there and this one was better than most.
