There is more than a whiff of MAD MAX about BURST CITY certainly. But in truth, if you see it as a line. A line from cyberpunk history. One that bolts its riverts to link  Beat culture and renegade films like REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE. In a wasteland somewhere on the outskirts of Tokyo, two rival punk bands gather for a Battle of the Bands-style protest. Blood and thunder is the noise and fluid to puncture the place. However all is not so easy. Youth is fractured and volatile. Especially when the youth that encapsulated punk and revolution in the early 80s get involved. Drugs, cheap thrills and modernisation are clawing at their very soul.

So them joining together to stop the construction of a nuclear powerplant might underline how youth is an agent of change but also destruction. So bringing them head to head with the yakuza industrialists from the past. Monied and anti change. They are behind the development. They ain’t gonna back down and neither will the Youth of the day. Violence is punctured by riot music and its an emotional cluster bomb.

DISC

HD or not HD. The prognosis is that it adds nothing. Nothing. NOTHING to the whole. This is a good thing and a bad thing. You pay for upscale, you get…well…what your DVD had already delivered with an added 1%.

EXTRAS

Bursting Out is an active piece that deals with jishu eiga (also the film) but the jishu eiga overview is intelligent and covers everything in a sprinkle kind of way. Tom Mes commentary as always hits on the films qualities, pushes the placing of the film (including mentions of AKIRA and TETSUO!)

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