Like so many authors of cult movies, Macoto Tezka didn't set out to make a commercial bomb. His debut feature, "The Legend of the Stardust Brothers" ("Hoshikuzu Kyodai no Densetsu"), was widely lambasted upon its release in 1985, but over the years it has steadily acquired a reputation as a delightful curio — a quirky rock musical that also serves as a microcosm of Tokyo's pop cultural milieu on the cusp of the bubble era.

This month, the movie was reissued on Blu-ray and DVD in Japan, along with its 2016 sequel. It has also been touring the international festival circuit, with an overseas Blu-ray release due later in the year from Third Window Films, a distributor specializing in atypical Japanese cinema.

Starring real-life musicians Shingo Kubota and Kan Takagi, the movie tells the story of a pair of rivals from the Tokyo band scene who are turned into pop sensations by a shadowy Svengali (played by singer Kiyohiko Ozaki). But after a fleeting taste of success, they soon discover that, in the words of one song: "Once you reach No. 1, you just go down." This isn't really the kind of film that you watch for the plot, mind you. It has some killer songs, for starters, courtesy of idiosyncratic musician Haruo Chikada, which range from punk and new-wave to retro kayōkyoku (Showa Era Japanese pop) and rock 'n' roll.