Camps d'amour pour chiens jaunes

Bamboo House of Dolls (1973, 1974 or 1977, various years are given for this title) is a Hong Kong veteran Chin Hung Kuei's (Killer Snakes, Boxer's Omen, Payment in Blood etc.) women in prison flick produced by the legendary Shaw Brothers. Yes, even they got their hands into low exploitation sickies like this, and Bamboo is definitely among the worse attempts of the whole genre, even when compared to the Western attempts that usually pale in comparison with the Eastern films!

The story is about a Japanese war camp in which the Chinese women are brutalized, abused and raped by the bad Japanese (what else?) during the World War II. The girls also know a secret place in which a box full of gold is hidden and also learn that a Chinese military officer raised in Japan (Shaw veteran Lo Lieh) is actually now an undercover agent among the other Japanese and naturally helps the girls escape the hell. What follows is sequences full of gratuitous nudity, female kung fu, some nasty torture, gore, sleaze and extremely offensive anti Japan attitude that make this film pure and honest garbage that doesn't even try to be more than it is.

There are hardly any interesting elements in Bamboo House of Dolls. The occasional photography especially at the end looks nice with its sunbeams and beautiful nature but that's about it in the merits department. The fight scenes are plenty and always include half naked females hitting and kicking each other. The violence overall is quite nasty at times with several bullet wounds, misogynistic torture scenes (for example, one poor girl is brutalized on the floor filled with broken glass etc.) and extremely repulsive ending and moral behind it. Of course it is stupid to talk about "moral" when writing about this kind of film, but still there are elements I won't accept to be found from any film.

The film has also some enjoyable turkey elements for sure! For example, the gold box, filled with heavy gold, seems suspiciouly light as the weak and suffered girls don't seem to have any problems lifting and moving it, not to speak of throwing it! Also those numerous "skin fight scenes" make this quite smile inducing for fans of trash cinema. I have seen the same director's Killer Snakes (1973) which is ten times more noteworthy as a piece and even though it has many alive snakes killed for real, it is also visually more interesting and shows us some nasty sides of the other side of the big city and society. Also, it is a must for those who fear snakes.

Bamboo House of Dolls has suffered some censorship, too, which isn't a surprise considered the subject matter. The uncut version, (dubbed into a non-English language) released in Europe at least in France, Italy and Switzerland, runs 104 PAL minutes while the cut, English dubbed print released in Holland, Belgium and Greece runs only 84 minutes in PAL. From what I've heard, the cut scenes are not only violence or other graphic stuff but also dialogue and "plot development" and the like.

Bamboo House of Dolls is garbage cinema in its most trashy form and definitely something I wouldn't have liked to see from the Shaw Brothers or Hong Kong in general. Some of the Italian exploitation films of the same subject matter are much more interesting and noteworthy than this quite ridiculous, calculated and worthless piece of cinema exploitation. 2/10

During World War 2 a group of Chinese and American (Red Cross) woman are put into a Japanese military prison camp. They are sometimes made available to Japanese officers. A group of them seek a way to escape.

WIP (Women in Prison) films were very popular worldwide in the 1970's. Some were excellent, some awful and this one falls in the middle. Nudity & violence was required. This includes some torture and explicit violence by the Japanese soldiers. Chinese films used to show how violent the Japanese could be as memories of the war still was in the Chinese consciousness.

This could have been named House of Breasts as the first three-quarters have plenty. But they were just on screen a lot usually in long shots. There is a story and it evolves over the course of the movie which is good. Good special effects for it's time and set design at Shaw Brothers studio.

The problems include some scenes that didn't lead to anything going on way too long. They could have been edited down without losing anything. The second problem is sometimes characters do things or don't that didn't make sense. That's when I yell out "Oh, C'mon!" The third problem is the acting was very mediocre. The exception is Terry Liu who played the female head of prison security who was outstanding. A couple of continuity issues round out the problems.

It wasn't the worst movie of its kind. It just wasn't very good either. It wasn't even worth watching for the breasts.

During World War II, a Red Cross hospital in China was ransacked by the Japanese army, and the female nurses were sent to a concentration camp. While there they are beaten, raped and tortured by the guards. However, the women have found someone to help them escape, and as soon as they get the chance, a small group of them makes a break for it. Unfortunately, things don't go exactly as planned because a traitor within the group has forewarned the beautiful but sadistic female officer in charge of security, named "Mako" (Terry Liu). And now their mistreatment really begins. Anyway, rather than reveal any more of the story and risk ruining the film for those who haven't seen it, I will just say that this turned out to be a fairly good Women-in-Prison movie. I personally liked the luscious blonde prisoner named "Jennifer" (Birte Tove) and the aforementioned Terry Liu, although there were quite a few other pretty ladies in this movie as well. Be that as it may, I recommend this film to those who enjoy this particular genre, and I rate it as slightly above average.

Big budget exploitation effort from Shaw Brothers is a little too sloppy to be praised, but it's a decent time waster. It is bizarre to see softcore Scandinavian sex siren Birte Tove ("Bedroom Mazurka", "Bedside Dentist") in a key role as prisoner/Red Cross envoy Jennifer. Ms. Tove gets beaten around a lot in this violent WIP (Women In Prison) flick and reveals more than her fine legs.

In fact, director Chin Hung Kuei appears to be obsessed with women's legs and underthings. Hardly a moment goes by that we aren't looking up a fallen prisoner's dress or watching another poor soul have have clothing torn off by an evil Japanese officer.

There is a confusing plot concerning hidden gold and some anti-Japanese propaganda, but the main focus of this exploitation epic is rape, beatings, catfights, escape attempts and torture. It's all done with tongue in cheese at times and is usually too extreme to be taken seriously. Though the film does have a TF Mous vibe at times (reminding this viewer of "Lost Souls" in particular), Mous's shocking exploitation classic didn't hit cinemas until 1980, six years after this was produced.

The film's scope is quite wide and events in the third act move to rural and coastal locations outside the central prison set. The climax is rather ludicrous and totally illogical, but by then, exploitation fans will have gotten their money's worth, if not any food for the brain.

This is no simple little 'sexploitation' or 'women-in-prison' film. Rating this film is difficult because it attempts to do so many things. It's always cool when you put on a movie that you don't expect too much from, and the director surprises you with a whole bag of tricks.

If all you want is sexploitation, then this might work for you - I believe there are more panty-shots in this film than any other in history. Seriously. There is a hella-sexy scene of all of the women bathing together with bowls and barrels. If you're into torture in your women's prison films, then this 'Bamboo' can scratch your itch. There is some pretty hardcore stuff here - a little too much for my taste. The presence of a few Caucasian women in this Japanese concentration camp was also off-putting to me... and, the white girls always had clean hair. How stupid... Meanwhile, the director puts all of this extra effort and detail into these realistic explosions and attempted choreography. Speaking of...

Why does this sexploitation film have so many effects and stunts? Wtf was going on over in Hong Kong? There was actual fight choreography in this film... several times... and, it was bad... every time... the choreography was bad every time. The explosions were good. The car chase scene destroys an entire set. They just keep driving this car into buildings and props until they destroy the entire set they were using. And, it was awesome.

You would think that all of these explosions and poorly acted fights might distract from the either the 'sex' or the 'exploitation' aspect of the sexploitation, but, no! Even in the midst of the car chase, the director manages to include a ton of panty shots. Genius.

This film is way better than it should be and is a unique trashy gem in a genre full of generic trash.

RealReview Posting Scoring Criteria: Acting - 1/1; Casting - 0.5/1; Directing - 0.5/1; Story - 0.5/1; Writing/Screenplay - 1/1;

Total Base Score = 3.5

Modifiers (+ or -): Gratuitous Female Nudity: +1 (Is it weird to say that this film makes me want to visit Hong Kong? Yeah, that's weird...);

Total RealReview Rating: 4.5 (happily rounded up to 5 for IMDB)