"My minds a blank!"

It's like the Warriors but every gang came dressed as Guitar Wolf with bikes (some in cars!) no public transport for them Swan!

"Come on make your mind up!"

This has to be one of the coolest movies ever made, it sweats no pours maximum rock and roll, it's the sort of thing Lux Interior and Poison Ivy from The Cramps probably used to watch while eating Findus crispy pancakes on a Thursday night (yes that cool!)

"Bunch of Losers!"

I feel this movie is way too cool to give it an actual score.
Homer: "Maybe if you’re truly cool, you don’t need to be told you’re cool"
Bart: "Well, sure you do"
Lisa: "How else would you know?"

Where to even begin when talking about Gakuryū Ishii's Crazy Thunder Road? The more you learn about the film's production, the more impressive it becomes. In an interview included on the Third Window Films blu-ray release, Ishii explains how he made the movie for his graduation project, using the university's equipment but having to pay for the actual film itself. He also mentions how he tried his hand at various creative endeavors as a teenager and young adult as he looked for an outlet to express all of his feelings, but the one that ended up being the perfect fit for him was filmmaking. Going through his body of work, I would say his contributions to cinema are as important…

Keep riding, young man!

It's hard to believe this was a graduation film given the amount of skill Ishii already displays. More narrative and a bit less taken to push the representation confratation as upfront as some of his other stuff. Which means this still plays first as a biker flick and only later as a post-punk treatise on how to represent anarchic resistence on screen. One of those debuts that already contains everything.

Crazy Thunder Road isn't post-apocalyptic, it's on the brink of destruction where punks spawned from an industrial wasteland wreak havoc on the establishment. It's like a frenetically shot post-yazuka biker flick with cyberpunk touches (one gangster inexplicably has a huge metal lower jaw; another has some kind of circuitry board fused to his forehead), nasty attitudes, manga storytelling inspiration, and neon light all over the black leather and wild-at-heart quiffs — at least in the bar scenes, while elsewhere the film takes to the filthy industrial zones on the urban fringes where chaotic violence ensues and lens flares are abundant. Totally raucous filmmaking from Sogo Ishii, and vital stuff if you want to trace the DNA from Mad Max (clearly…

There's really something about this movie that's so odd but I really loved it. All Jin wanted to do was ride his motorcycle, get babes, be crazy, but all the other damn bikers went soft to try and unified all the bikers gangs so there would be peace. And then the fascists get involved to help defend the nation. Not Jin, he's no fascist, he's gonna do what he wants, when he wants, even if that means defending his friends while they die and losing a limb or two. Just a fun mashed together movie where one scene is winter and the next isn't. All for the love of riding the bike.

the true beauty of Ishii is having no idea what kind of experience you're going to have when you hit play. not even a hint of genre. not a whiff of intent. luckily the only genre of movie I like is the one that's in front of me at that time. I can learn what it is later

Crazy Thunder Road is about as exciting as it sounds. What begins as a kind of Japanese version of The Warriors becomes a far different beast as it moves forward. Ishii directs this film with the same fire found in the early films of directors like Shinya Tsukamoto and Sam Raimi. The editing and camerawork is frantic, pounding from shot to shot, barely taking a breath between scenes. Crazy Thunder Road is pure punk energy with an authenticity that could never be replicated on a big budget.

Full review: mondoexploito.com/?p=12536

متعه وفوضى وجنون عظمه
اجواء الفلم قمه الروعه والاثاره
مع سينماتوغرافي خرافي استمتعت كثير فيه كعاده افلام قاكوريو ايشي استمتع بكل لحظاته و تستوقفني فريماته كثير حبيت تصوير ال16mm مرره احس الفلم خام وحقيقي

كتابته للشخصيه الرئيسيه مبهره
السرد وكامل القصه تنحكي عنه وكيف حالته تطورت ومر بعده مراحل ووصل لمرحله خطيره جدًا
الفلم تحسه مليان شغف سواء من صانعه المبهر او حتى من ممثليه طاقتهم حقيقيه وقويه
الموسيقى خياليه انا احتاج بلايليست لهذا الفلم!

5th Gakuryu Ishii (after Crazy Family, August in the Water, Angel Dust and Electric Dragon 80.000 V)

Week 51 of the Cult Movie Challenge- Biker Film Week

Wall-to-wall Japanese funk and punk makes up somewhat for the draggy narrative, as do the incredible lighting effects and crazy (ha) camera angles- one crawling around a bike fairing is particularly wild. Not a patch on the ethereal masterpieces of the 90s, but you have to admire a man who made a short film that was turned into a feature by Nikkatsu and then went onto make this as his Senior graduation project from film school. Here was a man with talent right from the get-go.

Gakuryu Ishii in Order:
1. Angel Dust
2. August in the Water
3. Crazy Family
4. Electric Dragon 80.000 V
5. Crazy Thunder Road

Best Ishii I've seen. Neon lighting, crude graffiti, industrial landscapes, handheld canted angles, grainy stock, lens flares, 360 degree pans. Everything in this movie looks like it smells like piss and motor oil. Scummy rockabilly speedfreak sci-fi. May give you a headache.

Seen yesterday but not listed on Letterboxd: Techine's La matiouette ou l'arriere-pays (1983), a 48-minute adaptation of a Jacques Nolot play made on black-and-white 16mm for TV. Entire thing takes place in a barbershop, but never feels stagey; pretty much a master class in decoupage. Also: smart, unflashy camerawork by Pascal Marti (Denis' No Fear, No Die) gives the whole thing a low-budget noir vibe.

Seen today, also not on Letterboxd:
Une Generation (Philippe Grandrieux, 1982). Ten-minutes long.…

It's not for everyone, but if anti-authoritarian mega-violence and full-throttle biker action scratch your itch, Crazy Thunder Road may just be for you. Although rather mindless and Manga-Male throughout, it's still an incredible debut film from student director Gakuryū Ishii. The technical level in action choreography, camera movement, lo-budge production design, editing and rock score, leaves nearly all biker films in its dust. Of course, if you appreciate characterization, thematic modulation, cogent plot, or a briefing in societal ethics--I'd look elsewhere. Then again, If you're down with Japanese punk, or the DYI cyber-punk of George Miller's Road Warrior, or even Mitsuo Yanagimachi's early Bōsōzoku documentary Godspeed You Black Emperor, then maybe this is the spit-in-your-eye scripture of alienation/retribution you've been searching for.

This anarchic punk mash-up of The Warriors, Mad Max, and proto-Deadbeat By Dawn was director Gakuryu Ishii’s graduation project. Paving the way for Akira and cyberpunk in one frenetic swoop, Crazy Thunder Road is a low-budget storm of anti-establishment revolt and social commentary, as a nationalistic militia tries to aim and groom the rage of clashing biker gang youths.

(I don’t know of the era’s politics but I got a sense of angry rebellion against authority’s attempt to clamp down on self-discovery and expression through patriotism.)

But subtext aside, Crazy Thunder Road is mainlined adrenaline: a frenzy of roaring bikes, chains, pipes, masked punks, graffitied headquarters, gang councils and rituals, warfare between rivals, ruined urban wastes, young love and primal…