House of Bamboo / House of Bamboo
USA / 1955 / 103 min.
Director: Samuel FULLER
[Introduction]
A train transporting weapons is attacked and an American military officer is killed. Police investigator Eddie SPANIER is dispatched to Tokyo under secret orders to look into the crime. Eddie pretends to be an American gangster friend who was killed by stolen bullets, and becomes intimate with his Japanese wife, Mariko. Before long, Eddie learns that a gangster based in Tokyo named Sandy DAWSON is behind the crime....... One of Samuel FULLER's significant works, "House of Bamboo" is a film noir masterpiece shot on a grand scale in Japan shortly after the end of the war. Though the interior scenes filmed on American sets are full of various inaccuracies, the preservation on color Cinemascope of exterior locations such as Yokohama Bay, Sumida River, and the steam locomotive running along the foot of Mt. Fuji, Japanese scenery now lost, is invaluable. To say that the film's climatic shootout in particular, which unfolds on the Sky Cruiser atop the Matsuya Asakusa department store's rooftop, is a famed sequence that will be written in to film history would not be an exaggeration. Screening of a digitally restored version for the 100th anniversary of FULLER's birth.
Samuel FULLER
Born in 1912, in Massachusetts, USA. After working as a journalist, he entered the film industry as a screenwriter. Made his directorial debut with "I Shot Jesse James" in 1949. He directed films across a variety of genres from war films and westerns to film noir up until his death in 1997. In particular, "The Big Red One," (80) influenced by his service experience during World War II, is considered a brilliant masterpiece in the history of war films. Other significant works include "The Steel Helmet" (51), "Pickup on South Street" (53), "Forty Guns" (57), "The Crimson Kimono" (59), "Shock Corridor" (63), "The Naked Kiss" (64), "White Dog" (82), "Street of No Return" (89) among others.
