The Camp on Blood Island

okay movie

Setting aside the actors portraying the Japanese soldiers and the gibberish that was supposed to be Japanese, this was a pretty decent little film. There was nothing all that great either as the film started to feel very repetitive due to a lack of character development from any of the characters.

This has two major fault. Firstly it plays the many atrocities committed for sensationalism. In this respect it almost is a predecessor of exploitation movies. Secondly and most importantly the Japanese are all portrayed as stereotypical villains. This even made worse by the fact that they are all being played by British actors. This is really too bad cause the movie does have a very good premise to make for a suspenseful movie and with AM as the steadfast British colonels it has a great lead.

Compact Prisoner-of-War film from Hammer Films. You can't help but compare it to Lean's River Kwai and obviously this one was done on a much smaller budget & without technicolor. The monochrome scope cinematography works quite well and Guest's direction is effective. It gives a big role to women's camp as well. It's biggest problem is the portrayal of Japanese as one note savages and having British actors play them. Of course you have to remember that in '58 the end of war wasn't that far away.