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House of Bamboo (Fox Film Noir)

Robert Ryan (Actor), Robert Stack (Actor), Samuel Fuller (Director) Rated:
Unrated
Format: DVD
4.4 4.4 out of 5 stars 150 ratings
IMDb6.8/10.0
$8.05
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June 7, 2005 		—
1
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Genre Drama
Format Multiple Formats, Closed-captioned, Color, NTSC, Subtitled, Dubbed, Widescreen
Contributor Brad Dexter, Sessue Hayakawa, Robert Stack, Robert Ryan, Samuel Fuller, Shirley Yamaguchi, Cameron Mitchell, Biff Elliot, Sandro Giglio See more
Language English, Japanese
Runtime 1 hour and 42 minutes

Product Description

Product Description

In Tokyo a ruthless gang holds up U.S. ammunition trains. Ex-serviceman Eddie Spannier arrives from the States apparently at the invitation of one such unfortunate. But, Eddie isn't quite what he seems.

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Samuel Fuller came up with one of his gutsiest "headline shots" for House of Bamboo: Mount Fuji, in CinemaScope, framed between the boots of a U.S. soldier lying murdered on a snowy Japanese embankment. Happily, the movie that follows is no letdown. This brutal gangster film was the first American production to shoot in Japan, and Fuller exploits his locations to the max, up to and including a climactic gun battle around a Tokyo rooftop facsimile of the turning Earth. Officially the screenplay is credited to Harry Kleiner, with Fuller cited for "additional dialogue"; in actuality, the 20th Century-Fox movie transplants the basic premise of the Kleiner-scripted Street with No Name (1948) from an American Midwest town to Tokyo, but otherwise the picture is unmistakably Fuller's own. A gang of American expatriates is robbing U.S. military ammunition and supply trains, and using military tactics to do it. They're a ruthless bunch, killing not only any troops and police that get in the way but also their own wounded. Robert Stack has a satisfyingly dark-edged role as an American drifter who's drafted into the gang, and Robert Ryan is mesmerizing as the psychotic crimelord. The action is tough--there's a genuinely shocking killing in a bathhouse--and Fuller's canny deployment of the newly widened screen is just as forceful. It's great to have this early-CinemaScope classic in widescreen DVD. --Richard T. Jameson

Product details

  • Aspect Ratio ‏ : ‎ 2.55:1
  • Is Discontinued By Manufacturer ‏ : ‎ No
  • MPAA rating ‏ : ‎ Unrated (Not Rated)
  • Product Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 7.5 x 5.5 x 0.5 inches; 2.88 ounces
  • Item model number ‏ : ‎ 2218569
  • Director ‏ : ‎ Samuel Fuller
  • Media Format ‏ : ‎ Multiple Formats, Closed-captioned, Color, NTSC, Subtitled, Dubbed, Widescreen
  • Run time ‏ : ‎ 1 hour and 42 minutes
  • Release date ‏ : ‎ June 7, 2005
  • Actors ‏ : ‎ Robert Ryan, Robert Stack, Cameron Mitchell, Brad Dexter, Shirley Yamaguchi
  • Dubbed: ‏ : ‎ French, Spanish
  • Subtitles: ‏ : ‎ English, Spanish
  • Language ‏ : ‎ French (Dolby Digital 1.0), Spanish (Dolby Digital 1.0), English (Dolby Digital 4.0)
  • Studio ‏ : ‎ 20th Century Fox
  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ B0006UEVVI
  • Number of discs ‏ : ‎ 1
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.4 4.4 out of 5 stars 150 ratings

Customer reviews

4.4 out of 5 stars
4.4 out of 5
150 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

Keisuke Kawasaki
5.0 out of 5 stars Most controversial film of Sam Fuller.
Reviewed in the United States on February 17, 2010
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"I hate it!" "Its so so." "It was great!" Sure, no great films could satisfy everybody's taste, but no other film is so controversial as Sam Fuller's HOUSE OF BAMBOO. Its a gang story. Its a melodrama. Its an action film. But was Fuller really needed to go to Japan to film all this? Could he just wrapp this thing up in the Fox studio at Hollywood? Truth is we are so grateful that Fuller went to a real location to shoot this. Because of that, the film is full of genuine dynamism due to the authenticity of cultural settings. From this film, we actually can sense fresh air of post war Japan in face to face.

More importantly, ever graceful Japan is menacingly challenged by the brutal act of foreigners, in this case foreigners are the gang of ex-G.I. led by a crime lord Sandy Dawson, played by Robert Ryan. This conflict, beauty versus brutality, is heart of the cinema, and it is quite effectively presented. A strict code of honor and harshness of the manhood are sharply contrasted with the peaceful romance between Eddie Kenner, played by Robert Stack, and local girl Mariko, played by Shirley Yamaguch. This sociological contrast added considerble amount of poetic depth which is the hallmark of Fuller's major works.

Moreover, wide screen color image is breathtakingly beautiful, so we cannot look away from the screen even for a second. Every scene is carefully composed and stylized. This powerful aspect of HOUSE OF BAMBOO is all doing of director Sam Fuller. He is brutal, greedy, active, and also quite romantic. Many fans would much prefer better received films such as PICKUP ON SOUTH STREET or FORTY GUNS but I prefer HOUSE OF BAMBOO to these films, because it is simply beautiful and dramatically stylish. This is the real Samuel Fuller's film.
12 people found this helpful
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telecaster62
4.0 out of 5 stars A Surprisingly Good Lost Treasure
Reviewed in the United States on April 25, 2008
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Robert Ryan & Robert Stack (yep, the guy from "Unsolved Mysteries") vie for control of Tokyo's underworld. In reality, it was the Yakuza that ruled the black-markets and pachinko parlors, and the more realistic tales of this plague are told by director Kinji Fukasaku with his "Yakuza Papers" series, or "Street Mobster", "Graveyard of Honor", etc.

But this movie is worth the price for a number of reasons: Principally, for what it gets RIGHT, the scenery (exteriors were shot on location in post-war Tokyo!), the behavior codes. It amazingly doesn't overstep its bounds in presenting something that pretty much couldn't have happened. Sure, you can smile at Robert Ryan's swank Tokyo bachelor pad, where men wear shoes inside (aurgh!) among the awesome mid-century design furnishings, and ignore the geographically-impossible views of Mount Fuji. But marvel at RARE views of post-war Tokyo and rarer glimpses of the Japanese countryside.. at a time when Japan was just starting to pick itself up following being nearly annihilated. Not to mention the exciting climax and money-shot atop what was then Tokyo's greatest modern landmark.

And above all, enjoy a good script, crisp direction and fine performances from Robert Ryan, Robert Stack, Cameron Mitchell and Shirley Yamaguchi. It's as brutal as mainstream American Movies could be at the time.

Dang! Good script, good acting, good visuals: That's a good movie!

Another note about the script: When the Americans mispronounce certain Japanese words and misunderstand culture, I don't think it's a flaw of the script, it's the writers' attempt to reflect how the crude men didn't quite get the local lingo.

Do yourself a greater favor and see "House of Bamboo" in your own living room double-feature with Kurosawa's "Stray Dog", another Tokyo crime story from the same general time-frame. Compare and contrast the depictions of the Tokyoites, the approach to police work, etc. See semi-related stories from the POV of Americans who've maybe been to Ginza, and from the people in the places that Americans just didn't go to.
10 people found this helpful
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E. Bradstreet
5.0 out of 5 stars Classic Noir (or maybe not)
Reviewed in the United States on January 14, 2021
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This film was produced in 1955 at the end of the Hollywood Noir era. This is a loose remake of 1948's "Street With No Name," where Robert Stack takes on the gang leader, played by Robert Ryan, the role which Richard Widmark had in the original. Though the story follows the formula of previous films of the genre, "House of Bamboo" was shot in Deluxe Color, as opposed to the more familiar gritty black & white. Co-written & directed by Samuel Fuller, "House of Bamboo" has a couple of firsts in its history. It was filmed in the then relatively new film science of Cinemascope & was the first American production filmed entirely in Japan (Tokyo & Yokohama) after second World War. If you are a fan of Noir, "House of Bamboo," will make an interesting addition to your collection.
3 people found this helpful
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Paul Morel
5.0 out of 5 stars House of Bamboo.. a masterpiece !!
Reviewed in the United States on March 19, 2016
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Brilliant Film, filmed in CinemaScope and DeLuxe Color in which Fuller uses the mediums of color and the anamorphic lens to heighten the tension all around the protagonists and Japan as well.He gives the illusion that this is the only story in town, that all of the rotary motion of these hunters and hunted is the whole thing.

Like all of his films, Fuller engages in us by placing a subtext of falsity in his films. Realism is not present as we are aware at times of the movie set, a light, a mike. He wants to shatter our comfort zones about hiding in the dark with a Hollywood movie, which this not. The title. House of Bamboo suggests further the illusory sense of possible diffusion of everything gone in one vast wipe out.

I recommend this film highly. Do not miss out on a very daring, ultimately rewarding experience of art in the making of House of Bamboo, and possibly tearing it all down.
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Ken Hof
4.0 out of 5 stars Anything with Robert Ryan is worth a look.
Reviewed in the United States on January 7, 2022
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Tight crime film directed by Sam Fuller. It takes place in post-war Japan. And Robert Ryan, who John Houseman thought was the finest actor in America, is, as usual, outstanding.
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Top reviews from other countries

bruce hodsdon
5.0 out of 5 stars We are not likely to see films like this again out of "hollywood'
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on May 6, 2016
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This is a quality blu ray of a key Sam Fuller film properly formatted in full Scope widescreen. In terms of Fuller's direction (mise en scene) it as an example of classical use of the widescreen in the CinemaScope decade (1953 - c1965) in which the full 2.35/40 :1 width of the screen is constantly and creatively deployed by the director. and cinematographer. We are not likely to see films like this again out of "hollywood'.. Other camera styles determined by ever faster cutting rates ( shorter average shot lengths) have progressively become dominant in Hollywood's Panavison era (1960-) although digitised long takes, as in Birdman and The Revenant, seem in prospect. At the risk of seeming excessively nostalgic, it is nevertheless not quite the same thing. With the decline of the dvd market I wonder if it is going to be continue to be possible to access properly formatted Scope films from the fifties and sixties like House of Bamboo. I am grateful for the opportunity to revisit Fuller's film in this form.
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Greg Gorecky
5.0 out of 5 stars House of Bamboo
Reviewed in Canada on January 28, 2013
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I am a fan of Robert Ryan, and lately have been watching quite a few of his films. I enjoyed this film quite a bit, and have added it to my Fox Film Noir collection.
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Bob Taylor
4.0 out of 5 stars Great action film
Reviewed in Canada on May 20, 2023
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It's wrong to call this film noir; it's a crime film with bang up action sequences--the finale on the ferris wheel is stunning. Robert Ryan is as sinister and crazy as you could wish; good supporting cast.
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Spike Owen
4.0 out of 5 stars You know what the army do with an agent found behind enemy lines.
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on March 29, 2011
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House of Bamboo is directed by Sam Fuller who also co-writes with Harry Kleiner. It stars Robert Ryan, Robert Stack, Shirley Yamaguchi and Cameron Mitchell. It's a CinemaScope production with colour by De Luxe, with photography by Joseph MacDonald. Leigh Harline scores the music and the film is a loose remake of The Street with No Name (1948), where Kleiner & MacDonald were also involved. The film is exclusively shot on location in Japan.

Tokyo, 1954, and an underworld outfit of American ex-servicemen are thriving on criminal activity. Their newest recruit is Eddie Spanier (Stack), in town to hook up with an old friend, his plans go awry on the news that his pal was killed during a robbery. But he catches the eye of the mob leader, Sandy Dawson (Ryan), and so begins a relationship that will have far reaching consequences for everyone involved with the two men.

A train draws to a halt on a bridge in snowy Tokyo, at its point of stopping the train is perfectly overlooked by a snow capped Mount Fuji. It's a moment of beauty, quite serene, then violence explodes as the train is robbed and death shatters the moment. And so Sam Fuller's House of Bamboo begins. One of the first Hollywood movies to be shot in Japan post World War II, it's a film that's as gritty as it is surprisingly violent. Yet the film is very beautiful in texture, courtesy of the location photography by the talented MacDonald who utilises the Scope format to capture some incredible visual treats. For this "noir-a-like" picture there's no shadows and fog, or off kilter angle plays, what there is is a beauty beset by ugly criminal things. Add in some Fuller oddity tones, terse dialogue in the script and some memorable moments of anger, and you get a film that can now be viewed as influential. Even if it's a picture that's hard to confidently recommend to serious fans of gangland type thrillers.

Expectation, as most film lovers know, can be a burden that's capable of spoiling many a nights viewing, with that in mind, House of Bamboo comes with a warning. For in spite of the synopsis lending one to think this is a brooding nasty picture about underworld crims, it's actually more comic book than hard boiled, and a massive dose of belief suspension is needed to run with the flow. There's also an issue with some flabby filler scenes involving the relationship between Stack & Yamaguchi, so much of an issue that were it not for a great smoke bomb based escape sequence leading up to the middle third, and some splendid homo-erotic subtext in the gang, the film would find it hard to fight off charges of being melodramatic for potential romance's sake. But Fuller manages to overcome the narratives problems to finish with a most intriguing and interesting film.

His cast are very efficient, where Stack is a nice fit for his character (can't say no more because of spoilers), Ryan is ominously coiled spring like and Mitchell is a chunky ball of menace. Then there is of course the director enjoying dallying with themes of duality, betrayal and racial indifference, all captured by his wonderfully fluid camera work. And thankfully the film is crowned off by an excellent finale set on a spinning rooftop amusement park viewer, one minute a stunning view across Tokyo, the next gunshots rattling the air like intruders invading your home. Beginning with stark violence and ending in much the same way, the overriding feeling seems to be that beauty can quite quickly become ugly.

The positives far outweigh the negatives in the House of Bamboo. 7/10
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Sanjay Kumar
5.0 out of 5 stars House Of Bamboo (Masters of Cinema) Blu-ray
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on December 24, 2020
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Received this gem well packed and promptly after ordering it.
The quality of picture and sound is truly magnificent, and a highly entertaining film featuring Robert Ryan in a role that is played superbly.
The story line is kept tight and cinematic images of Tokyo back in 1950's. This film was made possible due to cooperation from many authorities to make film authentic as it turned out to be.
This one is going to be watched again, in-case I've missed something from old Tokyo.
A must buy.!
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