There are few filmmakers that better encapsulate the punk aesthetic of much 1980s Japanese independent cinema than Ishii Sogo; and of his riotous, anarchic, frequently iconoclastic work in this decade arguably no film better represents such an aesthetic than Burst City in 1982. In only his third feature Ishii explodes convention, genre and the recondite boundaries of contemporary Japanese culture with a wide-eyed and gleeful abandon. In so doing he set a benchmark for an indie style that would subsequently inform such seminal films as Tsukamoto Shinya’s Tetsuo: The Iron Man (1989).

Building on the style and vision of Crazy Thunder Road (1979) Burst City is as explosive and headlong a rush through a world of bikers, bands, rebellion, protest, speed and sensation as one could possibly imagine. The film follows two story threads. In one story the denizens of what (again like Crazy Thunder Road) appears to be a future dystopia attempt to rebel against the construction of a nuclear power plant in their ward in Tokyo, racing cars, partying and brawling to the music made by bands like The Rockers and The Roosters (real Japanese punk rock bands that feature in the film).

This style and these narratives can be linked to experiential explorations of modernity, of subjective responses to a world that has led to a dearth of human contact. Art, in the form of musical expression, offers a space away from, as well as a reaction and a riposte to, a dystopian society. In truth little of the nods toward industrial pollution and social decay amount to much here. Ishii, as in his previous film, draws freely on a recent history in Japan of protests over governmental policy.