Crazy Thunder Road

  • 狂い咲きサンダーロード
  • Japan 1980, 35mm, 95 min, Japanese with English subtitles
  • Director: Sogo (Gakuryu) ISHII
  • Script: Sogo (Gakuryu) ISHII, Mitsuhiko AKITA, Masumi HIRAYANAGI
  • Director of Photography: Norimichi KASAMATSU
  • Music: Shigeru IZUMIYA, Panta & Hal, The Mods
  • World Sales: Dragon Mountain
  • Cast: Tatsuo YAMADA, Masamitsu OHIKE, Koji NANJO, Nenji KOBAYASHI
  • Friday, June 7, 8:30 p.m. Cinema in the German Film Museum
  • with an introduction by Tom Mes

One of the most important Japanese films of the past four decades is a raw saga of bikers, nationalists, rockers and anarchists. Made on equipment borrowed from the university where ISHII was studying at the time, CRAZY THUNDER ROAD not only got him kicked out of school and up to his neck in debt, it also launched his professional filmmaking career: it was picked up for national distribution by Toei Central Film. Like all of ISHII's best films, it is as much a document of an era and its subcultures (the supporting cast are mostly real bikers and rock musicians) as a rip-roaring work of fiction – one that Takeshi KITANO once famously voted one of the ten best films of all time. Unmissable. (Tom Mes)

 

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