Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.

I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

Very good movie overall, highly recommended. Most of the negative reviews don't have any merit and are all pollitically based. Give this movie a chance at least, and it might give you a different perspective.

It's simply great fun, a winsome film and an occasionally over-the-top luxury fantasy that never flags.

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.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.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.

During World War II a Red Cross hospital in China is ransacked by the Japanese army and the female nurses are 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 make 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.

During World War II a group of nurses are captured by the Japanese army and thrown into a brutal internment camp presided over by a cruel Japanese woman (kind of the Nipponese equivalent of Ilsa). There's a subplot involving Chinese spies in the camp and a hidden cache of gold that both the Chinese and the Japanese are after, and there's not one but TWO big "bust-out" scenes.This seems to be a Hong Kong take-off (produced by the notorious Shaw brothers)of the WIP genre made popular in the early 70's by people like Roger Corman. But since the American WIP films were usually shot in the Philipines and used Asian actors in supporting roles, and this movie cast Caucasian actresses in the lead roles, it isn't on the surface that much different from its inspiration (aside from the historical setting). However,the "American" characters here are actually Danish softcore porn stars like Birte Tove, and the whole thing apparently had to be dubbed clumsily into English, so this film lacks a lot of the character development of American WIP films. But at the same time it also lacks a lot of the chop-socky action sequences that characterized Hong Kong films of that era.The tone of this film is all over the place. At times it is more serious and brutal film complete with torture and rape scenes. It is somewhat stronger than the American WIP films if not nearly as strong the later Eurpean WIP films made by people like Jess Franco or the notorious Italian "Nazi sexploitation" films (or their American equivalent, the "Ilsa" series). Other times, however, it descends into slapstick comedy like a long, bizarre food fight scene. Sex, as always, is the real name of the game, but even this is curiously circumspect. There's plenty of nudity (shower scenes, etc.), but when the cruel female commander apparently rapes her favorite Caucasian stoolie with a strap-on dildo, the action is kept so much off-screen that it's hard to even figure out what's happening. And after Birte Tove's character first discovers that the Chinese camp cook is a spy who is going to help them escape, she decides to have passionate sex with him, even though they just barely met, and they proceed to do so after lighting about a hundred candles--which is strange to say the least considering this is a spontaneous and furtive encounter in an enemy prison camp.That's not necessarily to say this is a bad or entirely un-entertaining WIP film, but it is definitely a very strange one.

Hong Kong's legendary Shaw Brothers studio, best known for its classic martial arts movies, jumps on board the women-in-prison bandwagon with Bamboo House of Dolls, an entertaining exploitation effort that, although not as sleazy as a Franco, as sadistic as an 'Ilsa', or as stylish as a Female Prisoner #701, still offers fans of dubious film everything they could ask for from one of cinema's most disreputable sub-genres.Set during WWII, the film opens in typically tasteless WIP style with a group of sexy nurses being violently accosted by the evil Japanese army (in a cool slow motion credits sequence, the action freezes whenever a bare breast or panty gusset is exposed); these women are taken to a concentration camp where they are abused, raped, tortured and occasionally killed by the camp's sadistic guards and the sexy, lesbian head of security, Mako (Terry Liu).After loads of delightfully depraved action, including girl-on-girl shower sex, forced strap-on-action, cat-fights, and sadistic punishment, a small band of plucky prisoners make a bid for freedom, led by Hong Yu Long, the wife of a Chinese partisan (and the only person who knows the whereabouts of a secret stash of war gold) and the camp's interpretor (played by Lo Lieh), who has fallen for tasty blonde prisoner Jennifer (Danish softcore sex star Birte Tove).Once the action moves from the camp to the countryside, Bamboo House of Dolls becomes a far less sleazy affair, with the concentration being on bloody sword and gun battles between the nasty Japanese and brave Chinese guerillas, and unimpressive martial arts fights on barren hill-tops.Rather surprisingly, the whole film has a very polished look that suggests rather a lot of money was spent by Shaw studios, and the cinematography is quite beautiful at times (although I wish director Chih-Hung Kuei hadn't used his 'starburst' filter on EVERY shot!); it also benefits from a pretty snazzy soundtrack, which adds immensely to the overall 'coolness' of the film. If only Bamboo House of Dolls had managed to maintain the amazingly trashy vibe of its first half for the entire running time, then it would have easily have ranked as one of the best of the genre (but even though it loses some momentum towards the end, it is still well worth checking out).