Review of House of Bamboo (1955) by Brian R — 04 Oct 2010

A commercial picture directed by Sam Fuller. "House of Bamboo" reminds me a bit of "The Departed" but on a lighter scale(probably for commercial reasons). I admire the locations, Robert Stack as the undercover agent, Shirley Yamaguchi as the "Kimono girl" and Robert Ryan as the gangster kingpin.

Fuller is quite good with camera movement, the use of unexpected violence, and even taboo themes that deals with interracial. What did bother me was the visual idea of shooting on Cinemascope(for 3D effects), also felt the characters aren't really flushed out as they should have been, and the picture's climax also let me down. There should have been a better way to end the picture instead of using cheap violence.