Electric Dragon 80,000

A tidal wave of white noise and black arts, Ishii's live-action cartoon is inspired (improbably) by the form of silent movies: it cranks up visual expression to the max and relegates what little dialogue there is to intertitles in punk graffiti style. Dragon-Eye Morrison (Asano) was electrocuted as a kid, stimulating the saurian rage-centre in his brain. He now plays deafening electric guitar to express his anger and locks himself in bed at night to avoid hurting others. But along comes the Thunderbolt Buddha (Nagase) to challenge him to a high voltage showdown. Its sheer kinetic attack is, if nothing else, admirably singleminded, but the sad fact is that much of this was done many years earlier (at a fraction of the budget) in the first Tetsuo movie.