The Camp on Blood Island

I will put this movie between BRIDGES OVER THE KAWAI RIVER and KING RAT. This one is of course less spectacular and known than the David Lean's movie but it is so powerful, especially for the opening scene, with this skeleton human being - a prisoner - cold bloody shot by Japanese guards after this poor man has dug his own grave. The tone was then done. And I would have never expected to see a so skinny actor playing in a movie, as if he was really a real starved Japanese camp POW. However the other actors - except Andre Morell - seem a bit too good fed for me. British movie industry provided such good films between late fifties and early sixties about war in the Far East: THE LONG, THE SHORT AND THE TALL, YESTERDAY'S ENEMY - from the same Val Guest, by the way.

I saw this movie when I was fairly young and the scenes never left my memory. I could not get over the way the actors looked as if they had just been rescued from real Japanese POW camps. How could they get actors so skinny to play the parts? I thought they were real prisoners.

Although shot in black and white the realism is terrifying and not for the faint hearted.

It was so intense it's no wonder the politically correct brigade buried it but it was a true story and true to life in it's portrayal.

I doubt it could be remade as good but it would be good if they could. One of the most moving movies I have ever seen. Can anyone get me a copy?

Thrilling and stirring film about the prisoners of a Japanese Concentration Camp in which they are submitted to severe tortures , punishments and grisly executions by beheading. It is set in August 1945 , taking place at a concentration camp located in Blood Island. The war has ended.. now the slaughter begins !

A strong film about the prolific sub-genre of Concentration Camps with usual ingredients as sadistic commandant , ominous wardens , heinous soldiers carrying out barbaric orders and inmates suffering savage punishments . A cruel film dealing with the ruthless , brutal truth about the most barbaric prison camp in the annals of warfare . Being allegedly based on facts , authenticated by the very few who survived the massacre in this terrible camp .Although in the opening credits explains : all characters and the names used are fictitious . The film boasts of a good plethora of Britsh actors , Hammer's regular , giving decent acting as Andrew Keir as Colonel Lambert who commands the group of prisoners , Michael Goodliffe as the Camp's Chaplain , Michael Gwynn as Shields, Carl Mohner as Dutchman Van Elst , Philip Brown as pilot Bellamy and a known Hammer Screen Girl : Barbara Shelley .

The motion picture was well directed by Val Guest . He was a prolific and uneven craftsman , and outstanding in Science Fiction and Fanfasy films as The Quatermass Experiment, Quatermass II, The Abominable Snowman , The Day the Earth Caught Fire and When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth , Hammer's failure follow up to One Million Years B. C. Rating : 6.5/10 acceptable and passable .

Val Guest was one of the most prominent directors to worked for Hammer Films, only surpassed by Terence Fisher, although his visionary and most outstanding work, «The Day the Earth Caught Fire», was made outside that production company.

It was Guest who, with his international hit «The Quatermass Xperiment» (1955), pointed Hammer on the profitable path of "cinéma fantastique." However, apart from this film and its sequel «Quatermass 2,» Guest did not return to horror, not even when he made «The Abominable Snowman,» a good drama that he kept on a more philosophical and mystical plane, away from frights.

Before finding a more viable breakthrough to mainstream cinema with «Expresso Bongo» (1959), produced by his own company, Guest made for Hammer psychological dramas, thrillers and the war diptych consisting of «The Camp on Bloody Island» (1958) and «Yesterday's Enemy» (1959), a kind of war claim made to Japan, through cinema.

«The Camp on Bloody Island» was a box office success that consolidated the distribution of Hammer products through the American company Columbia Pictures; which addressed, 13 years after the end of World War II, the mistreatment received by British prisoners of war in a Japanese prison, located in the fictional Blood Island, on the former British colony of Malaysia. By then Columbia was preparing the release of a movie with a similar theme, «The Bridge on the River Kwai» by David Lean, which garnered attention and awards, but this did not prevent the Hammer production, despite devastating criticism, from being a hit. «The Camp on Bloody Island» was bolstered by the best-selling novelization of the script by John Manchip White and Guest.

Inspired by real events, the film of course took the "Hammer-style" way, with scenes of violence and sensational effects to impress the audience, and a little bit of eroticism. Of both films, this is the most dynamic, with the action taking place in two main locations, a prison for British soldiers and a diplomat, and another for women; but from the dramatic point of view, it is the weakest. The script delineates the characters with a few strokes and all the credibility falls on the actors' backs.

In the case of the British, the balance is fortunate, in particular, with the work of André Morell, as the leader of the prisoners, who tries to hide information from the Japanese, boycotting their communication system, to stay alive. However, for the Japanese roles... Hammer did whatever it took to achieve its purpose, including casting the magnificent Indian character actor Marne Maitland as a Japanese villain. Of course, Maitland, as always, is the most wicked villain, with a squeaky little voice, which makes him meaner. I could not help but smile at the sight of dear old Marne, who I have seen in so many movies, squinting his eyes!

These two small, low-budget and effective films, in addition to the remarkable films that I knew and mentioned at the beginning of these notes, have increased the esteem that I already had for Val Guest's work.

Having waited years to see this film I was astounded just how bad it is, a Hammer production that has pure cockneys playing Japanese guards!, the acting verges on the utterly bad to utterly impossible!,take for instance long time Hammer fave Michael Ripper who as a Japanese guard bursts out laughing every time he is in a scene, the head guard who is clearly of Indian origin is another badly cast member, the commander of the camp is also another British actor hamming it up, I thought they had wandered off set from an Alladin pantomime!, the premise for all the controversy that it was brutal beyond belief had me scratching my head, i've seen worse in a Tom & Jerry cartoon.