This was one of my most anticipated films for this year’s TIFF, considering how wonderful Takahide Hori’s debut feature-length movie Junk Head was. A great piece of stop motion animation for which you can’t help but admire the creativity and the ambition when it comes to its depiction of a dark sci-fi underworld full of strange oddities, horrors and curiosities. It doesn’t always make sense, but the vision is so unique and there’s nothing like it. Plus the amount of time Hori had spent working on it for so many years – often by himself, sometimes with a very small crew of 2 other people which is ultimately commendable. This time around with Junk World he has a slightly larger crew (6 people), and perhaps a slightly larger budget that allows him to indulge a little bit further into the universe he has created and explore that creativity further.
Some of the things that made Junk Head great can be found again in Junk World. Some of the weird absurd humor – including the references to a lot of phallic-shaped objects – plus the unique setting even above ground crossses over into Junk World in ways that I think are quite fun and not meant to be taken that seriously at all. In Junk World the humor does lean more towards nudity jokes – especially with the main villain’s henchmen being scantily clad from the bottom down, which might stick out in an odd way considering my own expectations, given that the comedy of Junk Head wasn’t quite like this – but I was able to roll with it.
Junk World focuses more on the lore and world building of its universe, perhaps to a detriment. Many characters here try to elaborate on the circumstances regarding what is happening and sometimes commenting on the weird intricacies of the world above ground, resulting in a slightly more dialogue-driven experience compared to the original. For me personally, I prefer the more mysterious approach of Junk Head where not every weird thing that happens needs to be elaborated upon – instead it’s just accepted by the characters and by the movie itself. Even down to the very strange voice acting, which I wonder at times if it even sounded like Japanese at all, yet the fact that everything sounded so alien really helped me to immerse myself further into its world and what was happening. Here, the voice acting felt a lot more conventional – it’s very clear that all these characters are speaking Japanese, and it lacks a certain quirk and charm compared to the voice acting in Junk Head.
The world above ground also looks and feels a bit less interesting than the underworld within this planet. The characters themselves visually are less interesting, paired together with the fact that many of them look and sound human. The setting, plus the setup involving these characters here reminded me of a Final Fantasy game with the flying ships and extravagant costuming, plus the characters wielding swords fighting against giant creatures and monsters that get in their way.
The second half of this also has significant portions where it recaps events that occurred earlier in the film, to the point where you could feel the tedium start to set in. There is a time travel element that gets introduced during the middle of the film, where we see these characters enter the portal, changing their futures in ways that affect the timelines of others, causing those other characters to enter the portal to try to change their destiny in a cyclic response. Eventually the characters come to realize that you can have too much of a good thing and they stop before it gets even worse and nonsensical. Because of this storytelling device, many of the events that happened earlier in the film simply get revisited over and over again during this section – much to the movie’s detriment, as it oftentimes feels like the action hits a standstill while we are waiting for more plot development after the recap.
Still, this is not without its fun moments! The stop motion craft as always demands respect and appreciation considering Hori spent 3 years to get this follow-up made on top of the many years he spent on Junk Head. The behind-the-scenes stuff at the end credits as well is the extra cherry on the cake; always illuminating and interesting.
