A nurse in a Japanese women's POW camp during World War II masterminds an escapee. BAMBOO HOUSE OF DOLLS is the Shaw Brothers response to the wave of women-in-prison films that were doing the international rounds in the early 1970s, mainly spearheaded by Roger Corman's exploitation movies shot in the Philippines. The result is this movie, one which is superficially watchable and contains all of the right ingredients, although one that's also oddly muted in places.<br/><br/>The main problem I had with this film is that it does feel like an imitation rather than a work of art. Director Kuei Chih-Hung was well known for creating some of the stronger movies to be released by Shaw but he didn't hit his stride until the early 1980s with his Hong Kong horrors like HEX. Here, he goes through the motions more than anything else.<br/><br/>The film opens with a bunch of women, some of them blonde Westerners, being captured by typically sadistic Japanese troops and thrown in prison. There's a full hour of the usual WIP clichés, including a sadistic lesbian guard, plenty of padded sex scenes, torture, and nudity from pretty much every woman in the cast. Later, an escape attempt moves this film into action-adventure territory with the hunt for some stolen gold, and it all ends via stock action which isn't too exciting. The most interesting cast member is Lo Lieh, cast against type as one of the good guys for a change; the rest isn't really much to get too excited about. Weisser calls this the 'granddaddy of WIP films' and it is easy to see why. This Shaw Brothers production is non stop sexy, violent action. From the opening credits where the picture frequently freezes to show up the skirt shots of skimpily dressed fighting girls, we know which direction this one's going. In fact the girls are in and out of the same little costumes throughout the film and PC this is not. The first half is real sleazy WIP with very violent scenes of torture and more, with bare female flesh much to the fore. With the second escape we leave the prison camp for good and the movie becomes more a violent kung fu thriller with a little less skin and much more blood. Certainly a considerable tour de force and according to Weiser again, banned in Hong Kong for 10 years! Oh and by the way this is the Japanese in SW China during WW2 and it is they of course who are the baddies.
Daralhem replied
335 weeks ago