House of Bamboo (1955) on Netflix
An Army train is robbed in Japan and a sergeant is killed. Eddie Kenner is sent to Tokyo to infiltrate the gang of former servicemen run by Sandy Dawson.
- Netflix3.8/5
- IMDb6.8/104,526 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes85%
Trailer
Plot summary
Guns, ammunition and smoke bombs are stolen from a military train in Japan, and the American sergeant on guard is killed. Weeks afterward a wounded thief, Webber, dies in a Tokyo hospital, and the bullet that killed him came from the pistol used on the train. Among his belongings is a letter from Eddie Spanier, an American just out of prison who hoped to join him in Tokyo, and word of a wife, Mariko Nagoya, kept secret. Eddie arrives, seeks out Mariko and hears of Webber's death; she had hidden the marriage and feared his killers. When Eddie tries to shake down a pachinko parlor, Sandy Dawson's men beat him, and Sandy, taken with his nerve, draws him into a gang of dishonorably discharged ex-servicemen. Mariko, hoping to learn who shot Webber, agrees to move in as Eddie's kimono girl.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about House of Bamboo (1955)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Samuel Fuller felt Sessue Hayakawa's English was not up to par because the silent-era star had not lived in the United States for many years, so he had Richard Loo re-dub all of Hayakawa's lines in House of Bamboo.
- For years House of Bamboo was seen only in pan-and-scan television prints, which cropped DeForest Kelley off to one side and made viewers think he had only a small role near the end; a new 1990s CinemaScope print showed he is in the film throughout.
SPOILER
A scene from House of Bamboo in which Robert Ryan kills Cameron Mitchell while Mitchell is in a bathtub is briefly shown prominently in the 2002 film Minority Report.- House of Bamboo was the third major American studio film shot on location in Japan, after Tokyo Joe (1949) and Tokyo File 212 (1951), and the first one in color.
- Director Samuel Fuller shot several scenes of House of Bamboo guerrilla-style, hoping to capture unvarnished scenes of post-war Japanese urban life.
