Can’t wait for Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga? 5 post-apocalyptic movies from Asia to watch, from Akira to Snowpiercer

Hollywood doesn’t have a monopoly on hellscapes. From Hayao Miyazaki to Bong Joon-ho and Louis Koo, Asian filmmakers have delivered post-apocalyptic hits

Katsuhiro Otomo’s Akira offers a towering vision of a dystopian future, and Shinsuke Sato’s I Am a Hero revived the zombie feature ahead of Train to Busan

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Anya Taylor-Joy in a still from Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga. Ahead of the film’s release, why not indulge in some of the best post-apocalyptic visions from Asian filmmakers, from Akira to Snowpiercer and Warriors of Future? Photo: Jasin Boland

Published: 7:00pm, 16 May 2024Updated: 7:15pm, 16 May 2024

Next week, Australian filmmaker George Miller whisks audiences back to his signature desert hellscape with Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga.

Chris Hemsworth and Anya Taylor-Joy star in this prequel to 2015’s multi-award-winning Mad Max: Fury Road, and the fifth film in the franchise overall, laying out the origin story of the one-armed warrior previously played by Charlize Theron.

Since the first Mad Max film back in 1979, Miller’s dust-choked, gas-starved vision of the future has inspired generations of artists and filmmakers with its feverish combination of post-apocalyptic cyberpunk chic and edge-of-your-seat daredevil stunt work.

In anticipation of the new film, we look back at five of our favourite depictions of an uninhabitable future in Asian cinema.

1 Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind (1984)

Master animator Hayao Miyazaki’s breakthrough anime combines ravishing visuals with a powerful ecological message, establishing a formula the celebrated auteur would return to time and again over the course of his career.

NAUSICAÄ OF THE VALLEY OF THE WIND | Official English Trailer