A violent, guitar-playing, electrically charged boxer faces off against an electronic wizard half-merged with a metallic Buddha.

Electric.Dragon.80.000V.2001.576p.BluRay.DD5.1.x264.mkv

General
Container:  	Matroska
Runtime: 	54 min 32 s
Size: 	1.07 GiB
Video
Codec: 	x264
Resolution: 	1024x552 
Aspect ratio:  	1.85:1
Frame rate: 	23.976 fps
Bit rate: 	2 349 kb/s
BPP: 	0.173
Audio
#1:  	Japanese 5.1ch AC-3 @ 448 kb/s

https://nitro.download/view/FA31C1B28B8E484/Electric.Dragon.80.000V.2001.576p.BluRay.DD5.1.x264.mkv

Language(s):Japanese
Subtitles:English

The post Gakuryû Ishii (Sogo Ishii) – Electric Dragon 80.000 V (2001) first appeared on Cinema of the World.

IMDB says:
An elegiac ode to a loner who finds it difficult to fit in and the inevitable eruption of his frustration, Isolation of 1/880000 tells the story of Takemitsu, a disabled young man caught in the “examination hell” of trying to get into one of Japan’s top universities. Director Sogo Ishii (now renamed as Gakuryu Ishii) was the original 8mm punk, whose works expressed unhinged energy and made speed, intensity and rebellion their stylistic and thematic center, carrying over into his later 16mm and 35mm films such as Crazy Thunder Road and Crazy Family. In contrast, Isolation prefigures the more ethereal aesthetic of his big budget 1990s films.

780MB | 54m 59s | 640×480 | avi

https://nitro.download/view/D605487FEF950FC/kodoku.avi

Language(s):Japanese
Subtitles:None

The post Sogo Ishii – Hachiju-Hachi-Man Bun no Ichi no Kodoku aka The Solitude of One Divided by 880,000 (1978) first appeared on Cinema of the World.

The film that put ISHII on the map, thanks to a Grand Prize at Japan’s bastion of indie cinema, the PIA Film Festival. Those who know the director mainly for his punk style films will be surprised, not to mention delighted, by this ode to 1970s yakuza movies à la Kinji FUKASAKU. A movie like a good rock band: it stars a charismatic young cast, has energy to spare, and thumps with a pace and rhythm that sweep you breathlessly along. (Tom Mes)

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Language(s):Japanese
Subtitles:English

The post Sogo Ishii – Totsugeki! Hakata Gurentai aka Charge! Hooligans of Hakata (1978) first appeared on Cinema of the World.

Quote:
Those looking for examples of the importance of Sogo Ishii in the development of Japanese cinema, and his abilities as a filmmaker, need to look no further than Burst City. At first sight a rather eclectic mix of Mad Max-style imagery with yakuza elements, filtered though a punk sensibility, on closer inspection Burst City reveals the seeds of many of the developments in contemporary Japanese cinema and beyond. It foreshadows everything from the works of Shinya Tsukamoto and Takashi Miike to two decades’ worth of MTV music videos. And quite a few things in between.

Story-wise this is no great shakes, centering around the clash between a group of Mad Max-type bikers, a gang of yakuza and a community of punk musicians with assorted hangers-on, set in a barren, futuristic world of highways and wastelands. But storytelling is not the point here. Utilising the music and the people from that scene, Ishii’s goal was to make the cinematic equivalent to punk music. A movie in which every frame is imbued with the philosophy, spirit and look of the Japanese punk movement of the late 70s and early 80s. And how he succeeded; Burst City screams and growls coarsely, bombarding us with distortion and attacking established norms with boundless energy, anarchism and irreverence. It’s rough around the edges, certainly, but should a film inspired by the punk philosophy be slick? When we notice a camera shadow, that’s not an indication that the film is badly made. It means the opposite.

Aside from being admirably true to its intentions and sources, Burst City is also a seminal and visionary work. Ishii’s use of editing and camera is groundbreaking, his use of sound masterful. In these departments, Shinya Tsukamoto borrowed from Ishii wholesale for his breakthrough feature debut Tetsuo – The Iron Man (1989), while the way the director fuses several scenes’ worth of story and exposition into a rapidly-cut, video clip-like montage later resurfaced in the opening ten minutes of Miike’s Dead or Alive (Dead or Alive – Hanzaisha, 1999) and The City of Lost Souls (Hyoryugai, 2000). Additionally, the director’s use of documentary-style passages would resound in the mixing of documentary and fiction so in vogue with many of today’s filmmakers, including Hirokazu Kore-eda and Naomi Kawase.
Though not entirely without precedent (the camerawork is reminiscent of Kinji Fukasaku’s films of the early seventies, for instance), Burst City is on the whole a film which doesn’t have its roots in cinema. It draws its inspiration from elsewhere, in particular of course from the rhythms, sounds, spirit and attitudes of the aforementioned punk movement. It’s liberated cinema, free from the rules of the form. If normal narrative film is parallel to prose, then Burst City (even though it’s most certainly narrative) is poetry. Not in the lyrical sense, but in the structural. The way the poet is free from the forms and conventions that tie down the novelist, so Ishii is free from the forms and conventions which the average filmmaker willingly (perhaps ignorantly) adheres to.

Irreverent, manic, anarchic and energetic – Burst City is pure punk. Together with Ishii’s Crazy Thunder Road (Kuruizaki Sandaa Rodo, 1980), Shuffle (1981) and Panic High School (Koko Dai Panikku, 1978), it can be regarded as the starting point of contemporary Japanese cinema, making it one of the most important films in that cinema’s history. — Tom Mes (Midnight Eye)

2.16GB | 1h 56mn | 1024×556 | mkv
https://nitro.download/view/24AA859B7C566E6/Sogo_Ishii_-_(1982)_Burst_City.mkv

Language(s):Japanese
Subtitles:English

The post Sogo Ishii – Bakuretsu toshi AKA Burst City (1982) first appeared on Cinema of the World.

Synopsis
Jin, an antagonistic youth, tries to take over a motorcycle gang once its leader, Ken, announces he’s going to retire and settle down with his girlfriend. But things aren’t so easy for Jin. The other gangs have united, and decide that Jin’s reckless ways are a thing of the past, so they band together to take him and his four followers out.

Review
Visions of a bleak, post-apocalyptic urban wasteland strewn with twisted hunks of mechanical wreckage. A rasping electronic buzz on the soundtrack. These impressions kick-start into a jarring, rapid-fire sequence of chrome, neon and showers of sparks alongside the howl of roaring motors, as boys in black leather with Be-Bop High School quiffs ride menacingly out into the night in the theatrical debut from arguably the most important director to emerge from Japan during the 80s.
Completed by former punk musician Ishii for his film course graduation from Japan University in Tokyo, this raw-edged biker flick is a tour-de-force of automotive auto-eroticism. Originally shot on 16mm, Toei were so impressed by this violent counter-cultural kick-back against the anodyne fluff that typified early 80s cinema that they blew it up to 35mm for theatrical distribution.
Focusing on the internal conflicts within the Mabiroshi biker gang, set in motion when their leader Ken opts out of the frontline to settle down for a life of domestic bliss with his girlfriend Noriko, the story unfolds almost as a series of fragmented image sequences, its manga-influenced stylistic origins rendered more obvious in scenes such as a muted bar room heart-to-heart as the resigned leader communicates to his girlfriend tacitly in a series of speech bubbles in the form of textual intertitles.
Ken’s departure leaves the rest of the gang floundering with all the direction of a headless chicken, and so into the breach steps Jin. When Jin’s hellraising antics begin to incur the ire of rival gangs, erupting into a full-blown pitched warfare involving chains, chainsaws and anything else that is hard-edged and at hand, Ken is soon hauled back into the fray.
Crazy Thunder Road has little in the way of stylistic precedent in terms of Japan’s previous decade of cinema, though the biker angle had been tackled before by Teruo Ishii’s Detonation! (Bakuhatsu!) trio of films during the mid-70s. Though often reminiscent of Mad Max (George Miller, 1979), Crazy Thunder Road bears more of a relationship with parallel developments in the US underground, notably Sam Raimi’s uncannily similar spirited debut, The Evil Dead (1982). Both films are dazzling showcases of ostentatious film school experimentation coupled with an undeniably accomplished technical proficiency and razor-sharp editing, films which attempt to subdue rather than seduce the viewer. Ishii and Raimi’s films are obvious calling cards to the industry that make a virtue of their minuscule resources to complement the raw-edged aesthetic, demonstrating that when it comes to making fast paced, in-your-face violent action entertainment, technical innovation stretches one hell of a lot further than big bucks.
Undeniably a product of its time, Ishii’s raw biker film lacks the gloss and veneer of later actioners, and its loud and brutally uncompromising kinetics arguably come at the cost of characterisation. However, what it lacks in charm, it more than makes up for in terms of its pure crude energy and a refreshing vitality. Approaching the material with precocious exuberance, this embryonic offering in Ishii’s oeuvre proved sturdy foundations for the director to build his career upon, a career in which the director’s explorations, experimentations and innovations into cinematic technique have continuously marked him out for interest.
taken from midnighteye.com

1.44GB | 01:37:14 | 720×400 | avi

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Language(s):Japanese
Subtitles:English

The post Sogo Ishii – Kuruizaki Sanda Rodo aka Crazy Thunder Road (1980) first appeared on Cinema of the World.

Quote:
Taking in the whole spectrum of pre-millennial new age phenomena, the bizarre August in the Water (whose English language release title is a direct translation of the Japanese, though is not to be confused with Yoichiro Takahashi’s identically titled Mizu No Naka No Hachigatsu, a 1998 coming of age drama which did the Festival circuit under the English language title of Fishes in August) is a bit of a mixed bag. Thematically, it’s a real inspiration. The X-Files notwithstanding, this sort of imaginative pseudo-scientific fantasy stands fairly uniquely amongst contemporary cinematic output. Visually the film is also a wonder, with impressive use of natural lighting in the bright exteriors, and beautifully composed Zen-like static shots of the assorted esoteric ephemera alternating with rapid multiple-angle edits and abstracted close-ups of the natural phenomena.

http://nitroflare.com/view/951C6154ECFC3E9/Sogo_Ishii_-_%281995%29_August_in_the_Water.mkv

Language(s):Japanese
Subtitles:English

The post Sogo Ishii – Mizu no naka no hachigatsu AKA August in the Water (1995) first appeared on Cinema of the World.

Synopsis:
Dead End Run is an hour length collection of three short films by Japanese visual genius Ishii Sogo. Starring three of Japan’s hippest and most talented actors: Yusuke Iseya (Casshern,) Masatoshi Nagase (Electric Dragon 80,000V) and the extraordinary cool Tadanobu Asano (Ichi the Killer, Electric Dragon 80,000v.) Each short focuses on the protagonists running away from a threat, be it a hitman or the police then finding themselves stuck in a dead end.

http://nitroflare.com/view/9E78AE3B5FF8D18/Dead_End_Run_%282003%29_–_Gakuryu_Ishii.mkv

Language(s):Japanese
Subtitles:English, Russian (muxed)

The post Sogo Ishii – Dead End Run (2003) first appeared on Cinema of the World.