, formerly known as , is a Japanese filmmaker known for his stylistic punk films, which helped spark the cyberpunk movement in Japan. A number of contemporary filmmakers including Quentin Tarantino have cited Ishii's films as an influence.
Early life
Born Toshihiro Ishii, (石井 聰亙), he grew up in Hakata, and because of all the American military bases in the area, he was exposed to a lot of American rock music. He spent his teenage years a part of the punk rock movement that grew in that region, singing and playing the guitar.
In 1977 he enrolled at Nihon University in Tokyo, and founded Kyōei-sha (Crazy Film Group). He borrowed equipment from the school to shoot his own 8mm and 16mm short films, which featured the style and philosophy of his punk roots. It was difficult for a young person in Japan to make films during that period, and he decided to skip the traditional corporate ladder route to film directing by just making the films himself.
Career
During his first year of college, one of Ishii's short films called Panic High School was noticed by Nikkatsu, a movie studio known at the time for its pink films. Nikkatsu provided the funding to adapt the short into a feature-length film. Yukihiro Sawada co-directed the film with Ishii, who was still only a sophomore in college.
Ishii took a short break from filmmaking in 1983 to form a band called Sogo Ishii and the Bacillus Army, which recorded one album, Asia Strikes Back. Ishii directed two films back to back: Gojoe, a 2000 action film about 12th century Japan, and Electric Dragon 80.000 V, a 2001 black-and-white 55-minute film starring Tadanobu Asano and Masatoshi Nagase. These two films combined the abstract style of his recent films with the intense energy of his early works. While Electric Dragon was praised by critics, both films were huge financial flops: so much so that they put Suncent Cinema Works out of business. and spent those ten years focused on teaching and experimenting with digital filmmaking by creating music videos, television episodes, and experimental shorts.
In 2012, he returned with Isn't Anyone Alive?, changing his name from Sogo Ishii to Gakuryu Ishii (Gakuryu meaning dragon).
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Short films
{| class="wikitable"
|+
!Year
!Title
!Notes
|-
|1976
|Panic High School
|8mm
|-
|1977
|Solitude of One Divided by 880,000
|8mm
|-
|1981
|Shuffle
|35mm
|-
|1983
|Asia Strikes Back
|16mm
|-
|1986
|The Master of Shiatsu
|35mm
|-
|1993
|J-Movie Wars: Tokyo Blood
|35mm
|-
|2002
|Stop The Time You Are Beautiful
|TV 16mm
|-
|2005
|A Day of the God Island
|
|}
Music Videos
{| class="wikitable"
!Year
!Title
!Notes
|-
|1981
|Anarchy ‘80 Revolution
|
|-
|1986
|Halber Mensch
|16mm Art MV
|-
|1989
|Dumb Numb: Live Friction
|
|}
Others
- Neo Ultra Q (2013) - TV Series