Stream House of Bamboo Movie Online
Mercredi, mai 5th, 2010 |
Stream House of Bamboo Movie Online.
Movie Title: House of Bamboo House of Bamboo is available for streaming or downloading. |
I was expecting a lot more from this movie than I got. On one level it’s a fairly taut crime drama that takes place in Tokyo in the mid-Fifties. On the other hand, it has a lot of tough guy cliche dialogue and a performance by Robert Stack that is just not good. The story line is simple, but look out for spoilers ahead.
Buy,Download, Or Stream House of Bamboo! Click Here
Sandy Dawson (Robert Ryan) heads up a gang of ex-servicemen in Tokyo who pull off robberies with military precision and complete ruthlessness. If anyone gets wounded, he’s killed right then. The U.S. Army and the Japanese police join forces to crack the gang. They send in a ringer, Eddie Spanier (Robert Stack), to infiltrate the gang. Spanier is a false identity; he’s actually an Army crime investigator. What follows is the story of Dawson’s operation and how it works, and of Spanier gradually gaining Dawson’s trust. The climax pits the two against against each other when Dawson at last learns of Spanier’s real job.
The movie was shot in Tokyo and looks great. Anyone who has spent time there will recognize a number of locations. (One false note is when Samuel Fuller cuts to a scene that was actually filmed in Kamakura at the Great Buddha and at the Hachiman shrine.) Robert Ryan and, in a smaller role, Cameron Mitchell as Griff, his second in command, do first-rate jobs, especially Ryan. Sandy Dawson is a dangerous man, superficially polite and solicitous, but not far below the surface is a big ego, a streak of cruelty and what could be a hint of homoerotic feelings for Spanier. This isn’t stressed, but it explains Dawson’s actions concerning Spanier, and his intensity when he finds he has been betrayed. Dawson is also just a bit off. His last dialogue with a silent Griff is not that of a man who is in total command of his marbles. Ryan dominates the movie. Unfortunately, the movie is about the efforts to catch Ryan’s character, and these efforts center on Robert Stack’s character. Stack just isn’t a good enough actor. Sam Fuller evidently wanted Stack to play Eddie Spanier like a real tough guy, but Stack can’t carry it off. He “acts” like a tough guy would walk and move. He “acts” the way a tough guy would speak and sound. It’s phony from the first sentence out of Stack’s mouth, and it undercuts the effectiveness of the story.
Buy,Download, Or Stream House of Bamboo! Click Here
The romance scenes between Stack and Shirley Yamaguchi seem stilted and almost unnecessary, but Fuller pumps up the tension on the action sequences. The train robbery, the robbery at the cement factory and the set up for the robbery of the bank bus are well handled. And the showdown between Dawson and Spanier, with the Tokyo police, at a children’s fun park high on top of a business building is great. On balance, however, House of Bamboo’s strong points seem to me to be a nice performance by Robert Ryan and some great scenery. The DVD picture is first rate.
This 1955 Sam Fuller film noir is basically saved, character-wise, by Robert Ryan who plays a vicious crime boss in, of all places, post-WW II Japan. The first American film shot there after the war, this is unique for that aspect. Ryan is great, as usual; I can’t think of one film he’s in that he doesn’t make better than it is thanks to his presence. He runs a bunch of pachinko (read: pinball) parlors, a front for his crime operations which include robbing American supply trains of all kinds of stuff (the opening scene shows this really well).
Robert Stack plays an undercover cop who infiltrates Ryan’s gang to find out exactly how the man murdered at the beginning of the film during the heist bought it. Thanks to not only colorful settings, but Ryan’s great performance, this is better than it should be. The script is kind of ho-hum. Stack is OK, pretty good, not great; he’s Robert Stack. He falls for the widow of the murdered guy; she’s Japanese so Fuller brings in another (semi-)controversial element, interracial love (which he also did in Crimson Kimono).
Fuller’s an original, no question. Whether that originality is always of high quality is questionable, but he does love to hit the viewer in the face with issues challenging social convention and in that respect, he’s definitely worth watching. When he’s great–as in Pickup on South Street, or Shock Corridor–where everything fits together and purrs like a Ford Cobra engine–he’s unbeatable. Here, in House of Bamboo, he gets some of the issues in, but the story is nowhere near as strong as it could or should be.
Worth seeing. Owning? I dunno.
nc homes for sale | nc real estate | wake forest 27587 nc homes for sale
DVD to ipod converter | DVD to mpg | dvd to psp
Watch NBA Basketball Games Online | Watch NBA Playoffs Online Live
nc homes for sale | nc real estate | wake forest 27587 nc homes for sale
Watch NBA Basketball Games Online | Watch NBA Playoffs Online Live