5 Underrated Japanese Sci-Fi Films

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Every culture has a certain subset of its population that will devote their time to imagining the distant future or the depths of space. That imagination, however, will always be influenced by the outlook on the world that they're used to. With that in mind, many countries have unique takes on the medium that are hard to recapture elsewhere.

In the United States, Japanese cinema is far too often boiled down to cinematic anime and their live-action adaptations and cultural oddities like kaiju films. Though most of the highest-grossing Japanese films come from the world of anime, they have a lot of other interesting film traditions to offer.

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Though the cyberpunk movement officially started in American literature, best seen in the work of authors like Phillip K. Dick and Bruce Bethke, Japanese cyberpunk has been integral to the subgenre. Burst City was director Sogo Ishii's third feature, and it stands today as a progenitor of the Japanese cyberpunk movement. As a film, it's a chaotic mess with a limited plot. It's an experiential encapsulation of the era's punk subculture. Ishii pushes the camera to its limits, eagerly throwing aside narrative focus in exchange for a pulse-pounding tone. It also serves as a showcase for the era's music, as three actual Japanese punk bands make up the lively soundtrack. Sci-fi fans looking for a thoughtful exploration of mankind's relationship with technology should look elsewhere. Those who felt that Mad Max: Fury Road was a little too restrained are in good hands with Burst City.

First-time director Junta Yamaguchi helms this oddball sci-fi comedy. The film was shot in a week for almost no money, literally filmed on Yamaguchi's iPhone. In a rare case,