Gakuryu Ishii

Ishii Gakuryu

  • Name: Ishii Gakuryu
  • Native name: 石井岳龍
  • Also Known as: Ishii Gakuryuu, 石井聡互, 石井總亙, 石井聰互, 石井聰亙, いしい がくりゅ
  • Nationality: Japanese
  • Gender: Male
  • Born: January 15, 1957
  • Age: 67
Ishii’s career divides into two distinct halves: the brash early films, which earned him a reputation as a punk filmmaker, and the slower, pictorial, sometimes meditative work of his mature period. His early features were the fruit of the amateur short films he directed, while still a student, on 8 and 16mm; at Nikkatsu’s invitation, he remade one of them, Panic High School (Kōkō daipanikku, 1977; remade 1978) in feature-length form. Dramatizing a rebellion by students after one of their number commits suicide because of academic pressure, this revealed anti-establishment leanings sustained in Ishii’s next features. His graduation film, Crazy Thunder Road (Kuruizaki sandā rōdo, 1980), which also earned theatrical distribution, was a rowdy account of gang warfare in the streets of Tokyo; its raw intensity was some compensation for its lack of finish.
The success of these student films earned Ishii the opportunity to direct two further features in the same wild style. Burst City (Bakuretsu toshi, 1982) intertwined the story of a group of punk rockers protesting against the construction of a nuclear power plant with that of two bikers seeking revenge for a murder. Crazy Family (Gyakufunsha kazoku, 1984) was a scattershot satire on the Japanese nuclear family, whose characters respectively personified the underlying militarist tendencies of the elder generation, the materialism of the postwar generation, and the academic pressure on the young. Ishii’s best-known film abroad, it was certainly subversive, but suggested the limitations of the director’s early manner. The apparent madness of the family made them seem too extreme a case to be representative, and while superficially arresting, the film was less penetrating than Yoshimitsu Morita’s similarly themed Family Game (Kazoku gēmu, 1983).
Its domestic failure left Ishii unable to finance further features for ten years, but his comeback, Angel Dust (Enjeru dasuto, 1994), was an eerie thriller
which displayed a new stylistic discipline and psychological depth in its story of a psychiatrist who begins to
feel implicated in a series of murders committed by a former lover. Its themes of urban and pre-millenial angst were also central to August in the Water (Mizu no naka no hachigatsu, 1995), in which Ishii returned to his native Fukuoka to narrate a curious story of adolescent emotions set against the backdrop of an apocalyptic plague. Ultimately inconsequential, the film still had a certain beauty, its shimmering images conveying the feel of stifling summer heat. Ishii next made Labyrinth of Dreams (Yume no ginga, 1997), like Angel Dust a story of a woman’s equivocal fascination with a murderer. This, too, was a highly atmospheric film, shot imaginatively in a monochrome which reflected the visual textures of the cinema of
the fifties, when its story was set. Although these films lacked the satiric edge of Ishii’s early work, their elegant, small-scale approach seemed fruitful. By contrast, Gojoe (Gojō reisenki, 2000), Ishii’s first jidai-geki, was a cavalier reworking of Japanese history, visually striking, but marred by trite elements of fantasy. It proved a costly flop, which bankrupted the company of producer Takenori Sentō.
Apart from his feature films, Ishii has also sustained a career as a director of shorts, experimental works, and music videos for such Japanese punk banks as Anarchy and The Stalin. Among his avant-garde films, Shuffle (Shaffuru, 1981), Electric Dragon 80,000V (2001) and Dead End Run (2003) all rejected narrative detail for a near-abstract distillation of generic plots, used mainly as a vehicle for formal experimentation. In Mirrored Mind (Kyūshin: 3D Saundo kanzenpan, 2005), he seems to have combined this formalism with a renewed interest in character, focusing on an alienated actress and her emotional regeneration during a trip to Bali. Since even Ishii’s commercial films have revealed a consistent interest in innovation and experimentation, one may expect that his oeuvre will continue to develop in unpredictable directions.

(Source: A Critical Handbook of Japanese Film Directors) Edit Biography
Director
Year Title Type Rating
2023 Almost People
Movie
0.0
2018 Punk Samurai Slash Down
Movie
6.4
2016 Bitter Honey
Movie
6.7
2015 That's It
Movie
6.9
2012 Isn't Anyone Alive?
Movie
6.3
2003 Dead End Run
Movie
6.9
1978 Panic High School
Movie
7.1
Screenwriter & Director
Year Title Type Rating
2024 The Box Man
Movie
0.0
2013 The Flower of Shanidar
Movie
7.3
2005 Mirrored Mind
Movie
7.6
2001 Electric Dragon 80.000 V
Movie
6.9
2000 Gojoe: Spirit War Chronicle
Movie
6.5
1997 Labyrinth of Dreams
Movie
7.7
1995 August in the Water
Movie
7.3
1994 Angel Dust
Movie
7.3
1993 Tokyo Blood
Movie
7.0
1984 The Crazy Family
Movie
7.7
1982 Burst City
Movie
6.3
1981 Shuffle
Movie
6.6
1980 Crazy Thunder Road
Movie
6.4
1978 Attack! Hakata Street Gang
Movie
0.0
1978 Isolation of 1/8800000
Movie
0.0
Movie
Year Title Role Rating
1991 March Comes in Like a Lion
Japanese Movie, 1991,
[Ramen Deliveryman] (Unknown)
[Ramen Deliveryman]
Unknown
6.6
1979 Kenju Tateshi Dai Ichi Bu Shito Hen
Japanese Movie, 1979,
[Target 12 Action Commander] (Support Role)
[Target 12 Action Commander]
Support Role
0.0
TV Show
Year Title # Role Rating
2004 Cinemaholic
Japanese TV Show, 2004, 56 eps
(Guest)
56
Guest
0.0
Articles
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Ishii Gakuryu

Gakuryu Ishii
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Details

  • First Name: Gakuryu
  • Family Name: Ishii
  • Native name: 石井岳龍
  • Also Known as: Ishii Gakuryuu, 石井聡互, 石井總亙, 石井聰互, 石井聰亙, いしい がくりゅ
  • Nationality: Japanese
  • Gender: Male
  • Born: January 15, 1957
  • Age: 67

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