Prison Flicks

Rating: (3 out of 5)

Starring: Birte Tove, Lieh Lo, Chi Cheng, Chen Feng, Min-Lang Li, Roska Rozen, Fan Mei Sheng, Niki Wane.

Directed by: Kuei Chin-Hung

Run Run Shaw presents…

Bamboo House of Dolls is a wild entry in the genre. It is pretty much a standard WIP plot, although intercut with pretty intense fight/action sequences, and more disturbing than usual torture scenes. In short, take a basic Roger Corman flick and spice it up with Hong Kong sensibilities. The picture quality on my transfer was poor, and at least a couple of the scenes seemed to be out of order, so I am willing to grant that a cleaner version would rate 1 more manacle. My version also came with no real credits and IMDB’s entry is pretty sparse, so I may get several of the names wrong, and in any case, I can’t connect characters with actors. If anyone has corrections for my review, please send them along.

Jennifer gets her first experience of Japanese attitudes towards health care professionals.

The movie is set in Japan-occupied China during the Pacific War. The movie opens with Japanese soldiers raiding a Red Cross hospital, looking for a downed American pilot. They line up the patients and nurses outside and start executing them. After a while, as the Japanese guards are about to kill a small boy, a blond nurse (whose name is either Jennifer or Vanessa or something else, but we’ll call her Jennifer throughout… she sorta looks like a Jennifer) tries to intervene. She quickly gets shoved aside, but before the soldiers can kill the boy, the pilot surrenders. He’s promptly killed, and the Japanese commander then turns his men loose on the nurses who are assaulted stop-motion as the opening credits run.

We now shift to a prison camp. Apparently not only have the Japanese invaded a Red Cross hospital and killed patients and assaulted the nurses, they’ve also taken the women to a prison camp. Now, I’m not an international lawyer, but I do think this might violate one or more Geneva Convention. The camp scenes are pure exploitation, as the women sleep in the nude and seem to be uniformed in baby blue short dresses. We meet two other women: a nervous blond named Mary and a tough-brunette named Elizabeth. We also meet the evil female head guard, whose first act on-screen is to force one of the prisoners to lick her boots clean. The Japanese here are all portrayed as various degrees of sexual deviants and sadists, but ultimately they have a certain believability that goes beyond the cardboard villains that usually populate WIP movies. Despite some odd inconsistencies that crop up later, the characters and the prison camp inhabit a real historical period and location.

Mmmm. Patent leather in the morning. Better than bacon.

The women are called to attention. Then the warden appears. “Bring her out,” he orders, and his men go fetch an Asian prisoner from the “box” — a corrugate metal shack. The unfortunate prisoner had tried to escape, and the warden wants to make an example of her. He orders her hung by her wrists. A guard tears off her dress. Then the evil matron produces a whip and orders one of the other prisoners to beat the would-be escapee to death. When the other prisoner refuses, she gets whipped until she breaks down and begins to assault her fellow prisoner. The whippie soon collapses and dies, and the grief-stricken whipper goes to pieces and tries to make a run for it. She races to the wall and climbs to the top. She then throws herself against the barbed wire, and is promptly electrocuted. Grim.

The girls tackle the grim task of burying one of their own.

After witnessing this scene the other girls are increasingly desperate to get out. As they work on a hard labor detail they begin plotting an escape, but at this point talk of a bust out is sort of idle discussion. The girls’ frustration builds to the breaking point, and in the lunchroom the tensions burst out into a wild food fight that soon turns into a full-blown brawl. In most WIP movies, group catfights are pretty desultory affairs — you can almost see the actresses trying to stay out of the way of things (sometimes you can see them trying, and failing, to keep a straight face) — but not here. The girls slam each other with table legs and trays. They flip each other in the air. The film seems slightly sped up here to give the scene a real frenetic quality.

Mary and the prison matron get, as the kids say, jiggy with it.

In one of the movie’s many jerky transitions, the lunchroom fights stops as quickly as it started, and the women are informed of the arrival of a group of Japanese soldier who they will have to “serve.” The following scenes are pretty over the top. One Japanese soldier throws shards of glass at one of the girls, and then pulls out his samurai swords and chases her around barefoot over a carpet of broken glass. He completes the scene by throwing her down and raping her on top of the shards. Ouch! This disturbing scene is intercut with another gal who actually seems to enjoying the attention, and lies there writhing about. A third gal lies there rigid as her soldier tries to make due. Most interesting is the case of Mary — one of the two cute blonds in the picture. She gets picked to serve the prison matron — remember, the one who is introduced getting her boot licked. The matron actually used a strap-on on Mary… and Mary sort of likes it.

Well, with this sequence out of the way, the plot really begins to kick into motion. One night one of the cooks corners one of the gals. Apparently, he is part of a spy ring that has infiltrated the prison in the hopes of busting out one of the prisoners. Hong Yu Long was the wife of a Chinese resistance leader who stole a bunch of gold from the Japanese. He died, and now she’s the only one who knows where the gold is. The resistance wants to break her out in order to get access to the loot.

Our hero “Jennifer” listens to the orders of the day.

Oddly enough, if I followed the plot correctly, Hong only arrives at the prison the next day, but whatever. That is also a weird scene. A truck pulls into the compound, and several women step out. The Japanese soldiers on the scene start to assault them, and this turns into a full-blown riot in the camp…. A riot that ends suddenly when the movie cuts to a scene of several women bathing in the nude. I presume that something got cut out in the middle there, but who knows? The bathing scene is surreal, since the girls actually seem sort of happy and giggly despite the circumstance they’re in. You’d almost think it was some sort of stock footage taken from a completely different movie… one where the main characters haven’t spent the past several weeks being beaten and raped. Anyway, the shower scene ends with poor Mary being dragged out to scrub the matron woman’s back.

The girls try to drag the injured Chong to safety, but they can’t escape the searchlights in the background.

That night, the women try to escape. They manage to lure a guard away from his post, and when he comes to check on the scantily clad ladies, they attack and kill him. In the meantime, the cook fellow (I think his name is Chong) breaks into the power generator and cuts the wires. The lights go down and the gals cut through the fence and flee. Meanwhile, Chong gets surprised by some of the guards, with a little nasty close-quarter fighting, he manages to get away. He climbs the barbed wire fence, slicing his hands to shreds in the process, and tries to join up with the girls. He finally catches up to them, but the girls have stumbled into an ambush. Chong tries to run and gets cut down by a blast of machine gun fire. Jennifer goes to his aid. With his dying breath, he lets her know that there is another infiltrator in the camp and that she should be in the lookout. He also tells her that there must have been a spy among them in order for the Japanese to recapture them so quickly. Now since the gals were hardly stealthy in their escape, I am not sure I see the logic here.

A Japanese tanning salon.

Anyway, the girls are recaptured and staked to the ground in the hot sun. There six girls in this little group. There are three westerners: Mary, the mousy blond love-toy of the camp matron; Jennifer, the blond Red Cross nurse; and Elizabeth, the saucy brunette. And there are three Asian women: Hong Yu Long, the wife of the partisan leader; Hu Li Chou, the gal who first makes contact with Chong (the infiltrating chef); and a blind chick, whose name I never really caught. One of them is supposedly the spy, but we clearly see all six baking in the scorching heat… which is quite a high level of commitment, I think. In any case, the girls, especially Elizabeth, think they know who the spy is… and they think it is Mary, who obviously has a special relationship with the camp matron. Now, Mary was having a little too much fun during the strap-on scene, but nevertheless, she never really struck me as worthy of much suspicion. Indeed, I’m not sure how much the other girls are convinced of her guilt either because they don’t even really cut her out of future escape plans, although they do slap her around a bit later on.

The camp’s strap-on wielding chief of security.

More interesting is the identity of the other infiltrator who we soon learn is the interpreter who acts as advisor to the warden. He manages to get Jennifer alone and gives her the 411. My version has the scenes out of sequence because they are discussing the gold before the scene where tells her about the gold being stolen in a flashback. He tells her that they are going to escape and take Hong with them. Jennifer is so grateful for the info that she puts out for him right then and there. It seems sort of odd. But maybe she’s just being smart because frankly one of the big puzzles for me is why the resistance guys would go to all the effort of busting out Hong and then put the whole operation at risk bringing along five other gals who have no more clue about the location of the gold than they do… especially since one of the other five gals is apparently a spy.

Anyhoo… while, this romantic scene is playing out, the matron woman questions Hong Yu Long… and by “questions” I mean, of course, “tortures.” First they put Hong into a nasty leg-breaking contraption that presses down on her thighs while forcing her heels ever higher. Then, she gets the ol’ electric shock treatment. Apparently, she breaks because she rats out the interpreter. At least, I think she does. I’m not really sure how she could, since as far as I know, the interpreter guy has only confided in Jennifer. Plus, weren’t the Japanese questioning her about the gold anyway?

After a wild ride, the girls manage to escape by jumping the fence. You really have to see this scene to believe it.

The following scenes are a bit confusing, so please bear with me. Though Hong gives up the interpreter, they go forward with the escape plan. The interpreter manages to steal a car, and the girls pile in (included a weakened Hong) and try to escape. Unfortunately, just as they approach the main gate, a truck comes barreling through. The car swerves, and now the car and truck play demolition derby around the compound as guards take pot shots at the interpreter and girls. They manage to send the truck careening off to the side, but now the guards have closed and barred the gate. The interpreter guy tries to ram the gate, but no dice. Finally, Mary jumps out of the car and tries to open it manually. She gets shot and bayoneted for her troubles… I guess that means she wasn’t the spy, eh? So, the interpreter wheels the car around, and manages to angle the car to jump the fence, which it does. This is pretty amazing considering the car is a 1930s-vintage touring car and probably weighs 3 tons. After clearly the fence, it falls about 15 feet and hits front end first, but despite all this, the car remains road worthy. The gals, none of whom were wearing seatbelts, emerge unscathed… well, except for Mary, of course. This whole scene is shot in a wild, over-the-top style that I associate with Asian action flicks. It is a style that barrows heavily from silent movies, and is the flip side of the John Woo-style slo-mo shots. I like it, even if it makes me think that the world would only actually look that if all the characters were stoked up on crystal-meth.

Mary tries to open the gate, and gets shot in the back for her troubles.

We now go back to the commandant’s office where we learn that the prisoners were allowed to escape so the Japanese could follow them to the gold, or something like that. Okay, lots of questions here. First, once Hong ratted out the interpreter, you’d think that they would have called off the escape attempt, no? Second, if they were going to allow the girls to escape anyway, they why torture Hong in the first place? Third, if they wanted to allow the girls to escape, then why did they bother trying to ram and shoot them during the escape attempt. Fourth, why would they let them escape, since it seems more likely to me that the girls would simply head for the hills and tell the partisans about the location of the gold rather than going directly to the gold themselves. Fifth, if the Japanese were hoping to follow the girls to the gold, then why do they chase them so closely that the girls are just trying to stay one step ahead. Wouldn’t a more subtle surveillance strategy have worked better?

With the soldiers close behind, the girls duck into the jungle.

Well, the car breaks down after a while, and the remaining five girls and the interpreter headed into the brush. The group is moving pretty slowly, what with a gimpy Hong and a blind chick to drag around. Worse, the Japanese soldiers seem to be closing in. The group manages to get separated, but when Hu goes back to find the blind women, she sees her scratching a mark in the sandstone. Unfortunately, before Hu can turn her in, the blind woman cracks her over the head with a rock. See, the blind women is the spy, and she’s only pretending to be blind. This is one determined spy. I mean, not only did she suffer through being staked to the ground in the hot sun, but she was also the prisoner force to lick the matron’s boots in the first prison scene. She soon catches up with the group, but the interpreter fellow offers to stay behind to hold off the soldiers. Hong, Jennifer, Elizabeth and the blind/spy woman continue on. The interpreter guy tries to cover up the marks, and is successful in leading the Japanese soldiers into an ambush by Chinese partisans. This whole section is a bit unclear. How did he know where the partisans were in the first place?

Ack! Snakes!

In the meantime, the girls are crossing a field. Suddenly Hong recognizes it as the location where her hubby hid the loot. This is pretty impressive since he only described it to her, and since the main landmarks are a rocky outcropping and a dead tree. I mean, how many of those might there be in northern China? She leads the girls to a cave, and inside, within a nest of snakes is the gold. Blind chick now decides to come out of the closet. She pulls a gun and blasts Elizabeth and Hong. Jennifer tackles her, and then interpreter guy arrives in time to disarm her. Just then, the Japanese soldiers show up. They try to smoke the gals out, but the gals outwit them by tossing out bars of gold. The Japanese soldiers swarm over the precious metal. In fact, they are so drunk with greed that when the gals toss out a box next, the soldiers swarm around that too… but instead of gold, the box is filled with poisonous snakes. (How did interpreter guy get the snakes in there?) Interpreter guy takes advantage of the resultant confusion to shoot and kung fu the remaining Japanese soldiers. Unfortunately, when Jennifer appears, she gets herself shot just as things are winding down. But, in the end, it is a happy ending because the resistance gets the gold and is able to continue fighting the Japanese… well, unless you happen to be Jennifer, Mary, or Elizabeth, who seem like Americans just caught in the middle of all of this…

Although all the girls meet nasty ends, the Chinese resistance strikes back at the Japanese invaders.

…at least I think that’s what happened. I freely acknowledge that many if not most of my descriptions might be based on misunderstanding. But until someone corrects me, I stand by my story. Anyway, the plot is sort of an afterthought. This is straight WIP fare, although the action sequences are shot with more style and energy than is usual. This is not a great movie, but I’m sort of sad that it isn’t available in a better print in the States. I’d like to see this movie get a nice, new DVD transfer, although I sort of suspect that there aren’t very many clean master prints out there available. In my version, many of the scenes were very dark and fuzzy. Still, this is better than most WIP movies, and definitely worth a look.

This movie also sort of got me thinking about the whole WIP genre, and especially the Nazi and Japanese prison camp sub-genres. I wonder who we’re supposed to identify with in these movies. The women suffering various atrocities? The torturers who usually end up getting killed? Or is this a weird genre where the viewer is a disembodied third party who vicariously enjoys both portions of both? I think it is a mistake to simply dismiss these movies as cheapo, grind house fare. Because even if that are, they are also clearly designed to tap into something, but I’m just not sure what. I may yet do a scene-by-scene, shot-by-shot analysis of one of these pictures to try to shed light on this issue. I welcome any thoughts on this matter.