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Burst City is an explosive Molotov cocktail of dystopian sci-fi, Mad Max-style biker wars against yakuza gangsters and the police, and riotous performances from members of the real-life Japanese punk bands The Stalin, The Roosters, The Rockers and INU.

In a derelict industrial wasteland somewhere on the outskirts of Tokyo, two rival punk bands and their unruly mobs of fans gather for a Battle of the Bands-style protest against the construction of a nuclear powerplant, bringing them head to head with the yakuza industrialists behind the development of their turf.

This extraordinary celebration of Japan’s punk music scene of the early 1980s thrust Sōgo Ishii (now known by the name of Gakuryū Ishii), the underground filmmaking wunderkind behind such works as Half Human: Einstürzende Neubauten (1986), Angel Dust (1994) and Electric Dragon 80,000V (2001), to the next level and is regularly cited as an early landmark in Japanese cyberpunk cinema.

SPECIAL EDITION CONTENTS

• High Definition Blu-rayTM (1080p) presentation
• Original lossless mono Japanese soundtrack
• Optional English subtitles
• Brand new audio commentary by Japanese film expert Tom Mes
• The Punk Spirit of ’82: Sōgo Ishii on Burst City, an exclusive new 56-minute interview with the director
• Bursting Out, an exclusive 27-minute interview with the academic and independent filmmaker Yoshiharu Tezuka on jishu eiga and the making of Burst City
• Original Trailer
• Image Gallery
• Reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Chris Malbon

FIRST PRESSING ONLY: Illustrated collector's booklet featuring new writing on the film by Mark Player

There's already an excellent Japanese blu ray of this (albeit without English subtitles), so this will probably look good. The extras look cool. But I really hate that cover. Hopefully there's a cool reversible cover underneath.

This is Ishii's Region A Blu-ray debut. Hoping for more to come.

There was an incredible Japanese box set with a ton of Ishii's films, incluiding his short Shuffle, which is amazing and the
first adaptation of a work by Otomo Katsuhiro (Akira, Steamboy, Neo-Tokyo).


Isn't he the first director to have an 8mm feature get a theatrical release in Japan?

I know there're rights difficulties in releasing his films along with many others outside of Japan, but I'd really love to see August in the Water & Labyrinth of Dreams again someday. Still, very happy that this is coming out.

It would be great to get Angel Dust on blu someday as well.

feihong wrote: Fri Aug 28, 2020 7:02 pm Hopefully there's a cool reversible cover underneath.

According to the Arrow site, the reversible cover appears to be the original Japanese poster, which looks great.

Really excited for this release, have the R1 DVD, which is fine, from what I remember. The extras sound great as the Japanese punk scene of that era (in particular The Stalin, who appear here) is really interesting.

colinr0380 wrote: Fri Aug 28, 2020 8:29 pm Here's the trailer

This looks wild but it might also make me physically sick with those camera movements.

Finch wrote: Sun Aug 30, 2020 12:49 amThis looks wild but it might also make me physically sick with those camera movements.

That's definitely the quality that all of the Japanese cyberpunk films of the era share along with the lo-fi industrial aesthetic. Wild camerawork and lots of aggressive soundscapes are de rigueur!

(Which arguably all reaches its apex in the last days of cyberpunk in the mid 90s with Shozin Fukui's 'spinning until both characters and audiences vomit' and incessant screaming filled films)

Adam X wrote: Fri Aug 28, 2020 8:42 pm I know there're rights difficulties in releasing his films along with many others outside of Japan, but I'd really love to see August in the Water & Labyrinth of Dreams again someday. Still, very happy that this is coming out.

Me too, though I wouldn't hold out much hope for Arrow issuing August in the Water, as they don't even get the name of the film correct in the included filmography!

I love Ishii's 90s work, and was delighted to get a chance to finally see Burst City, but it's kind of a mess, more valuable as a record of a scene than something along the lines of his more elegantly off-kilter later work. The film is full of energy, but it's firing off in every direction at once. In the accompanying interview with Yoshiharu Tezuka, he explains that they'd intended to make a more commercial movie, but blew through their budget before they'd shot everything, so Ishii filled the gaps with experimental footage. This accounts for the general incoherence, but I'm probably not alone in thinking those filler sequences are the most interesting part of the film!