Detonation! Violent Riders Blu-ray Review

88 Films

Blu-ray Release: July 22, 2025

Video: 2.35:1/1080p/Color

Audio: Japanese LPCM 2.0 Mono 

Subtitles: English

Run Time: 86:32

Director: Teruo Ishii

Iwaki (Koichi Iwaki) is a motorbike mechanic with big dreams of racing professionally. Then temptation arrives in the shapely form of Mayumi (Junko Matsudaira), the wild and free lover of Mitsuda (Yusuke Natsu), the leader of the Red Rose Gang, a pack of speed freaks tearing up the town. Iwaki meanwhile, has his sights set on the sweet and innocent Michiko (Tomoko Ai), but any potential romance is hampered by her overprotective brother, Tsugami (Sonny Chiba), and Mitsuda’s bullish plans to make Michiko his own trophy. Does Iwaki take the straight and narrow option or opt for a more dangerous road? (From 88 Films’ official synopsis)

A truly innovative and unique filmmaker, Teruo ‘King of Cult’ Ishii’s prolific career encompassed almost 100 features, shorts, and television episodes, ranging from the children’s sci-fi serial Super Giant (Japanese: Sūpā Jaiantsu; aka: Starman and Spaceman, 1957-1959) to mainstream hit Abashiri Prison (1965), which inspired no fewer than 17 sequels. But his enduring legacy is a series of pinku eiga thrillers and ero guro shockers, including Shogun’s Joys of Torture (Japanese: Tokugawa onna keibatsu-shi, 1968) and its sequels, Orgies of Edo (1969), and vivid, freakshow genre mash-ups Horrors of Malformed Men (Japanese: Edogawa Rampo Zenshū: Kyoufu Kikei Ningen, 1969) and Blind Woman’s Curse (Japanese: Kaidan Nobori Ryū, 1970).

Meanwhile, actor Shinichi ‘Sonny’ Chiba had been rising in prominence, finally breaking through as Japan’s martial arts ultimate badass in Shigehiro Ozawa’s 1974 hit, Clash! Killer Fist (Japanese: Gekitotsu! Satsujin ken), which would be released outside Japan as The Street Fighter. Excited to cash-in on The Street Fighter's international success, Toei made two official sequels and, soon after, paired Chiba with Ishii for two Street Fighter-esque crime thrillers in 1974, The Executioner (Japanese: Chokugeki! Jigokuken) and The Executioner II: Karate Inferno (Japanese: Chokugeki jigoku ken: Daigyakuten). Chiba, who continued acting until his untimely death from COVID-19 in 2021, appeared in ten movies the following year, including a third collaboration with Ishii entitled Detonation! Violent Riders (Japanese: Bakuhatsu! Boso zoku, 1975).

Detonation! Violent Riders isn’t a surrealistic horror film, bone-crunching karate epic, or jidaigeki drama – it’s an entry in the juvenile delinquent bikersploitation subgenre colloquially known as bosozoku. Bosozuku movies date back to the early ‘60s and tend to be intrinsically linked to other delinquent gang films, but offer an extra nugget of danger and mayhem. One huge cultural touchstone to come out of the genre was Katsuhiro Otomo’s Akira (1988), which relocates bosozuku-type delinquents to an apocalyptic near-future. Both Detonation! Violent Riders and Akira were inspired by real-world Japanese biker gangs* and you can see the roots of Otomo’s characters and their behaviors reflected here. 

Ishii’s reputation for brutality, explicit nudity, and general grotesquerie precedes him, but, fortunately or unfortunately, depending on your perspective, he leaves his nastiest instincts at the door. Detonation! Violent Riders isn’t a pinku eiga shocker, but a romp that tumbles into tragedy. It’s a vulgar and radically Japanese ode to older Hollywood troubled teen melodramas, like Nicolas Ray’s Rebel without a Cause (1955) and Robert Altman’s The Delinquents (1957). The standout aspects aren’t violence and nudity (don’t worry, there’s still plenty of both), but intense motorcycle action and dynamics between likable characters.

There were a total of four films in the Detonation franchise, two of which, Detonation! Violent Games (Japanese: Bakuhatsu! Boso yugi, 1976) and Detonation! Season of Violence (Japanese: Bakuhatsu! Boso no kisetsu, 1976), were directed by Ishii. The finale, Detonation! 750cc Tribe (Japanese: Bakuhatsu! Nana-han zoku; aka: Easy Riders of Tokyo, 1976), was directed by Yutaka Kohira. Chiba, who doesn’t make a significant appearance until about the halfway point, didn’t feature in any of the sequels.

* The plot of Detonation! Violent Riders is loosely based on real events, similar to the jitsuroku eiga (true account) yakuza movies it was produced alongside. Ishii highlights this by orchestrating huge scale shots of the actual gangs riding about the city and intersplicing additional stock footage and newspaper clippings, some supposedly real, some created for the movie.

Bibliography:

• Outlaw Masters of Japanese Film by Chris D. (IB Taurus, 2005)

Video

From what I can gather, there has never been an English-friendly home video release of Detonation! Violent Riders. The best that stateside Ishii and Chiba fans could hope for was a Japanese DVD with zero subtitle options. 88 Films’ North American and UK debut was created using another scan direct from Toei and the 2.35:1, 1080p transfer more or less matches expectations set by similar releases.

The print is gritty and grain levels ebb & flow depending on various factors, but the image isn’t dirty and the grittiness fits the off-the-cuff filmmaking style. Veteran cinematographer Yoshikazu Yamazawa (who actually ended his career on this film) keeps the camera moving and utilizes a lot of source lighting, leading to harsh, dark interiors and surprisingly vivid exteriors that give the transfer a real workout in terms of dynamic range.

Audio

Detonation! Violent Riders is presented in its original Japanese mono and uncompressed LPCM 2.0. The mono channel is a bit cramped when it comes to recreating a wall of roaring motorcycles and some of composer Keitaro Miho’s groovy rock score suffers from a touch of distortion at its loudest volumes, but the overall soundscape is unexpectedly clean, considering the sheer quantity of blaring horns, screaming voices, and rumbling engines throughout.

Extras

• Commentary with Ashley Darrow and Jonathan Greenaway – The Horror Vanguard podcasters explore Ishii’s work, the cultural and historical shifts that informed the film and other juvenile delinquent movies, the differences between Japanese and American troubled teen fiction, the true biker gang stories that inspired the Detonation series (in some cases, Violent Riders ended up foreshadowing later events), and other inspirations and themes seen throughout the film.

• Gang on the Run (19:50, HD) – Japanese film historian and self-described ‘Toei masochist’ Nathan Stuart looks back at Toei’s ‘60s/’70s era – a period spearheaded by studio head Shigeru Okada, who was responsible for changing gears and embracing new formulas, like the true account gangster movies and Toei-branded biker subgenre. Stuart also discusses Ishii’s status within the company and the casting and making of Detonation! Violent Riders.

• Still gallery 

• Japanese trailer

The images on this page are taken from the BDs and sized for the page. Larger versions can be viewed by clicking the images. Note that there will be some JPG compression.