Originally released to little acclaim in early 1980s Japan, at a time when post-apocalyptic cinemascapes were enjoying a vogue on the midnight movie circuit—Mad Max, Escape from New York, the Warriors, among others—director Sogo Ishii’s Burst City is the 1982 follow-up to his similarly dystopian-themed Crazy Thunder Road (1980). Burst City is the eccentric Japanese take on what the not-so-distant future would be like: as you might guess, it’s a chaotic dystopia peopled by a bunch of bellicose spiky-haired lunatics in punk bands (named The Stalin, The Roosters, and The Rockers) fighting one another for territory on a giant industrial rubbish pile. If that’s not enough, the punks are rebelling against government goons trying to destroy their druggy slacker subculture.
As one might expect, the Japanese vision of the future is darker and more anarchic than its Western dystopian cinematic competition: after all, this is a society still psychologically scarred from very real atomic-age devastation. Unlike trendier Western post-apocalyptic visions, punk rock music and fashion are at the forefront of the revolution-for-the-hell-of-it depicted in Burst City. What’s more, the “Battle of the Bands” concept is taken quite literally here, where musicians fight each other both physically and sonically. Ishii’s film also takes a few unsubtle cues from 1960s Japanese exploitation flicks, especially the dark sadomasochistic angle of Japanese “Pinky Violence” films. But what really sets Burst City apart from other period cinematic dystopias is the feeling that the viewer is as close to a participant in the film’s action as possible: clever use of handheld cameras gives an immersive feel, as if we’re at the center of every scene, whether it’s a drag race, a fistfight, a riot, or a rock concert—which often devolve into full-on riots.
As a sort of unintentionally humorous bonus, in Burst City we get some unforgettable English translations from the original Japanese, including what should have been a classic line in world cinematic history: “I dislike the activity itself called working!” (no doubt the “Here’s looking at you kid” of Japanese early 80s post-Armageddon cinema). Recommended.