Throughout the late 18th century a grand Japanese-fever swept the regrettably not vaccinated western nations like a swarm of African killer bees from Irvin Allen's archetypal classic of the same name, leading, among other things, to myriad French impressionist art works and Gilbert and Sullivan's `The Mikado', which is for all intents and purposes about as Japanese as Shepard's pie - and for that we shall be forever be indebted to Mr. Gilbert's and Mr. Sullivan. Now, with many of the Japanese's recent imports, the unabashed scrounging of the other culture's art technique has come full circle. So enthralled are the pitiable, deluded fools by our lowest common denominator pop culture orts that they expend large amounts of their time and energy on plagarizing what is already watered down Tarantino, Romero, and Zimmer, by which I mean that this movie has in fact more in common with Paul Anderson's awful adaptation of the `Resident Evil' games, in themselves a tribute to Romero's classic `Living Dead' trilogy, Roger Avary's almost equally awful `Killing Zoe', needless to say a very second-rate imitation of `Reservoir Dogs', and the musical excretion of Klaus `The Uncomposer' Badelt, who has become rich and famous by simply imitating his only slightly superior and in general grossly overrated mentor Hans Zimmer.<br /><br />The fundamentals that make up this movie's meager `plot' are recognizably familiar: The Avarian bank heist, the bickering gangsters, the Yakuza double-cross, the James Whalian ersatz-Frankenstein who crosses a line man was not meant to cross in order to reanimate his beloved dead wife, the Bay-esque macho military men with their Sam Elliot moustaches and Manuel Noriega-like skin, as well as the hilarity and wackiness that ensues when these forces clash. However, the imitation is not of a very high caliber, lacking the flaire and technical skill of a Tod Browning, a Romero or even, and this is particularly embarrassing, a Michael Bay or Roger Avary (I suggest the people responsible, especially the director, graciously commit harikari immediatly). Even without understanding a word of Japanese, the overacting and awkward, at times even idiotic, scripting is painfully obvious, as is the film's complete lack of original or memorable visuals. The pseudo-Badelt score is possibly the film's worst single aspect, full of hyperkinetic, depth-free, poorly synth-orchestrated, ultra-simplistic power-anthems of such a monumentally turbid, desiccated lifelessness that even if it fell off a junk, in this case not referring to the movie but to a Chinese flatbottom ship with a high poop and battened sails, it wouldn't be capable of rehydration.<br /><br />Still, one does have to give credit to any movie that has the guts to call itself `Junk'.