The Vintagent Classics: Burst City

BURST CITY (1982)

Run Time: 1:55:00
Producer: Dynamite Production, Toei Central Films
Director: Gakuryū Ishii
Writer: Jūgatsu Toi
Key Cast: Takanori Jinnai, Shinya Ohe, Yuto Iseta

FILM MAKERS

Released in 1982, Burst City is a Japanese dystopian punk rock musical / action film directed by Gakuryū Ishii. Created in the middle of the punk movement in Japan, many musicians took on leading acting roles as well as performing songs in the film. Ishii wanted to feature bands from all three of the major punk hubs in Japan: The Stalin were from Tokyo, Machizo Machida was from Kansai, and The Roosters and the Rockers were from Kyushu. In punk rock fashion, the cast and crew lived on the post-apocalyptic set that they built, for the duration of the shoot.

To give the film a fresh, revolutionary feel, Ishii experimented with many different techniques. The editing style is extremely fast and chaotic, and some scenes combine a mix of undercranked shots and regular speed shots with striking results. Musical numbers and scenes of performers getting ready backstage are shot in a documentary style. The backgrounds are populated with thousands of extras in eccentric costumes and hairstyles, all captured in grainy 16mm film.

The Burst City original soundtrack was released by SEE SAW on March 5, 1982. Listen HERE.

Ishii blazed onto the scene with his first film Crazy Thunder Road (1980), an independent punk rock motorcycle flick filmed while at university. It launched his career, and Burst City was the follow up made as a proper studio production. Both titles became defining films of the subculture and attitude of the punk rock community of Japan at the time.