Electric Dragon 80.000 V

Electric Dragon 80.000V is a striking black-and-white raunch through Tokyo, with an extremely simple plot line to accentuate the force of the film. It's about a troubled man who was shocked by high voltage wires when he was young. When his anger rises, he starts releasing electricity uncontrollably. The only thing able to calm him down is his... electric guitar.

The director, Sogo Ishii, is well known for his high-energy pieces, and began his career well before current highly regarded directors such as Takashi Miike and Shinya Tsukamoto, and produced bloody critiques on society even before Shinya reached for his first drill. Most notably, Sogo Ishii worked with Einsturzende Neubauten to produce Half Man, part documentary, part music video, and very good.

Electric Dragon 80.000V doesn't let you go, even when you're following in the footsteps of the main lead as he trawls through endless alleyways with pounding music in the background. Part of that is because of Tadanobu Asano, the relentlessly talented actor who has singlehandedly created a new sort of stardom in Japan, and it's no surprise he is called their Johnny Depp. The mastery over the direction is breathtaking - left deliberately rough to jar your senses, to neither keep you on the edge of the seat nor let you relax, you are driven to contemplate what exactly this is all about. The movie's fun to watch too!

The storyline reaches its conclusion none too soon, and none too late either. At just over 60 minutes, you get the feeling that there's going to be more of these, and you would be right. A sequel was produced which I'm dying to see.

This would be the perfect companion piece for Tetsuo the Iron Man. Sharp, over the top, and rather fierce lil' film that'll have you bugged out all the way till its conclusion. Though its only an hour long, the director packed in so much detail(including a gangster with a finger spinning phone/gun, missing lizard posters, an electric mattress, a supercharged guitar and more), humor and backstory that it seems as if the film is much longer but this certainly isn't a bad thing at all. One hour is more than enough and the filmmakers knew this instead of taking two hours to set everything up. This film is like an electrical surge to the senses. Like watching a car wreck but in slow motion. Hard, pounding music, crazy narration, sharp cinematography and an excellent use of the black, grey, silver, and white color tones only adds to the furious pace of the film. Not to mention some very funny performances by our two leads/challengers- a violence prone, guitar shredding lizard detective(imagine a Japanese Ace Ventura), and an electronic peeping tom/hitman/technogadget geek with split personalites(and half a metal mask). But, what makes these characters very cool- A shared love of electricity and an ability to conduct and harness it to use as they wish. This film is like a slow burn with two very volatile opponents slowly but surely heading on a crash course with each other. A very very very fun, funny and entertaining film. Highly recommended. 10/10

This is an aggressive Tour de Force in the vein of the early works of Shinya Tsukamoto, while nor sharing the intense body horror of those films or the extreme stand toward sexuality. Two electrified superheros battle for domination in this short (55 min) b/w feature film by Sogo Ishii. Electric Dragon Eye who was superempowered by an accident is capable of communicating with reptiles and releases his amphetamine stridden electronic energy by playing electric guitar on the streets. He is provoked by another stud the Thunderbold Buddha that is wearing a split mask over his head. Superfast cut Comic action combined with the sound of Ishiis own band Mach.167 culminates in a furious battle on the rooftop of a japanese megalopolis. Its Cyberpunk and definitely related to digital hardcore music or Alec Empire.

Director: Ishii Sogo Duration: 55 minutes

Imagine if you will, a young boy climbing up a towering metal structure that supports dangerous electrical wires while his family down below pleads for him to come down. The imagine one tiny sweat drop on the boy's cheek attracting an electrical bolt from the transformer that strikes him and knocks him from his perch. One would guess that the boy would be fried through, but in the world of _Electric Dragon 80,000 Volts_ this is definitely not the case. Instead the part of the boy's brain that controls emotions is damaged. The boy has a hard time releasing his emotions and when he does it usually results in folks being knocked out cold. The doctors try to keep him in line by shock treatment, but this only keeps him subdued for short periods of time. However, he finds a way to calm his inner demons and this is through an electric guitar, and so Dragon Eye Morrison, Asano Tadanobom is born!!

This movie is quite odd. It is in black and white which makes it feel quite gritty and low budget, but it does make the film's atmosphere quite striking especially when Morrison's anger builds up to overflowing. There is very little dialog and most of the film is spent watching Morrison hunt for lizards. His profession is hunting for lost lizards. However, the scenes in which he fights his arch enemy, Thundrerbolt Buddha, are quite well done. This is a fun film for a bit of mindless entertainment. It should be noted that Asano is in a band with the director Ishii and he also did the calligraphy for the film.

The entire point of comic books was that their art was ragged, untrimmed, spontaneous; artists were usually paid by the page, worked for daily strips, or monthly publications, Superman and Batman were launched in this way. As with the very means, a comic was about a gripping story quicky sketched. So the Hollywood craze with superheroes, bulky, sprawling films shooting for months while a small army of SFX experts are tinkering away at the designs, has directly negated what was so vital about these things in the first place. The apogee of this is the latest Batman films, no longer a product of pulp fiction, but of the most serious aesthetic and drama.

This beats with that primitive heart of comic-books; the DIY ethos, here especially channeled through a scrapyard punk rock aesthetic, and so like punk, the fast, hard-edged rhythms, the stripped-down instrumentation. The teenage energy.

If all this recalls Shunya Tsukamoto, it's because Sogo Ishii was the inspiration. He fathered the No Wave we find in Tetsuo.

Story-wise it's about these two man-technology hybrids, Dragon Eye Morrison and Thunderbolt Buddha, battling for control of the neon skies of Tokyo, for the privilege of harnessing the energies into seeing.

Dragon Eye is unbridled animal desire, pure violent instinct awakened by childhood abuse. Every night he sits down on his bed for shock treatment. He channels the energies back into the world with his electric guitar. The other guy is more intriguing, with the all-encompassing eye of the Buddha that permeates the veils of existence recast as a contemporary, technological eye that eavesdrops everywhere. Wired with industrial gadgetry, he monitors everything from his rooftop. His face is an amazing two-face design; half human, half a metal mask of the Buddha.

When they clash the movie erupts in white-hot blistering chaos, convulsing from the sheer power of the energies unleashed. Anime, punk rock, New Wave cinema, cold cityscapes, the anarchic edge of youth; at 55 minutes it's barely a full movie, but it's a melting pot of awesome.