Sogo Ishii — or Gakuryu Ishii, as he now prefers to be known — was just 23 when he released "Crazy Thunder Road," perhaps one of the greatest films to emerge from Japan's punk era (an honor it shares with the director's 1982 follow-up, "Burst City"). A nihilistic tale of warring biker gangs and ultra-nationalist militias, the movie drew comparisons to George Miller's "Mad Max," released a year earlier, though it was closer in spirit to the low-budget filmmaking that was then being pioneered by Sam Raimi in the United States.