Gakuryu ISHII 石井岳龍
Crazy Thunder Road
狂い咲きサンダーロード
Nippon Retro ²
One of the most important Japanese films of the past four decades is a raw saga of bikers, nationalists, rockers and anarchists. Made on equipment borrowed from the university where ISHII was studying at the time, CRAZY THUNDER ROAD not only got him kicked out of school and up to his neck in debt, it also launched his professional filmmaking career: it was picked up for national distribution by Toei Central Film. Like all of ISHII's best films, it is as much a document of an era and its subcultures (the supporting cast are mostly real bikers and rock musicians) as a rip-roaring work of fiction – one that Takeshi KITANO once famously voted one of the ten best films of all time.
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Crazy Thunder Road (NC 2013)
狂い咲きサンダーロード
Japan 1980
95 minutes
Director
Gakuryu ISHII
Script
Mitsuhiko AKITA, Masumi HIRAYANAGI, Gakuryu ISHII
Cinematography
Norimichi KASAMATSU
Music
Shigeru IZUMIYA, Panta & Hal, The Mods
World sales
Dragon Mountain
Cast
Tatsuo YAMADA, Masamitsu OIKE, Koji NANJO, Nenji KOBAYASHI
About Gakuryu ISHII
石井岳龍
Gakuryu (Sogo) ISHII was born in Fukuoka in 1957. His dystopian punk rock musical BURST CITY (1982) made him one of the precursors of the Japanese cyberpunk movement of the 1980s. Since then he has worked with renowned Japanese actors and international punk bands on numerous short and feature films. NIPPON CONNECTION dedicated a retrospective to his work in 2013.