The Camp on Blood Island [DVD] (1958) [2010]

This is a gritty and sometimes harrowing POW drama that goes some way to depicting some of the atrocities suffered by British prisoners inside Japanese prison camps during World War II. This film was made in 1958 by Hammer Studios and filmed in black and white in a ratio known as Megascope. The film was considered quite shocking when it was first released and certain scenes still have a strong impact when viewed today.

Set in the Malay Peninsula in 1945, the story centres on a group of British prisoners who discover that the war is over and that the Allied Forces have been victorious. The problem is that they must keep this news from reaching the camp's sadistic commandant, Colonel Yamamitsu, who has vowed to execute all the prisoners if Japan surrenders.

There are some very tense moments in this film and the levels of violence and brutality are quite high at times for a film made in the 1950s. It is not a Hammer horror film as such but certain scenes do have the power to shock just like some horror movies.

The excellent cast includes Hammer regulars such as André Morell, Barbara Shelley, Michael Ripper and Richard Wordsworth and it was directed by Val Guest, who directed many other important films for Hammer. It is hard to believe that the same director went on to make saucy comedies like Confessions Of A Window Cleaner and Au Pair Girls in the 1970s!

This DVD presents the film in its original Megascope ratio of 2.35:1 and includes an interesting collectors booklet so this is pretty much an essential purchase for fans of Hammer films and fans of classic British cinema.

One of Hammer's biggest hits in the late 50s when the studio was reinventing itself as one of Britain's most successful independent producers, The Camp on Blood Island has become something of a rarity in the subsequent decades: too violent for TV in the 60s, too politically incorrect today (it's not been seen on UK TV since 1979) and too downmarket for revival houses, its UK DVD release is the first opportunity many will have had to see what all the fuss was about. Despite looking to all intents and purposes like a quickie low-budget Bridge on the River Kwai knockoff - it even stars Andre Morell from Lean's film to lend it some gravitas - Hammer had submitted the script to the censors a year before its bigger budgeted rival and got a surprisingly soft ride for a script about atrocities in a Japanese P.O.W. camp. This may have possibly been because of its roots in a true story about prisoners faced with a massacre by their captors trying to keep the news from them that the war is over, but it didn't stop the UK critics tearing it to shreds as tasteless and racist exploitation or audiences flocking to it en mass, making it a huge box-office success.

While the film certainly has its fill of sadism and casual killing, it's surprisingly tasteful, the black and white photography downplaying the blood and the beheadings kept off camera and director Val Guest and cinematographer Jack Asher doing a surprisingly good job of hiding his low budget and British locations. Unfortunately there's no hiding some dismal miscasting of the Japanese roles. While the extras were played by Chinese waiters, predominantly in long shot, the more substantial roles went to the likes of Marne Maitland, Ronald Radd, Lee Montague, St Bruno tobacco ad man Milton Reid and, looking more like a Moomin than a sentry in possibly the most ridiculous role of his career, Hammer favorite Michael Ripper ("Hey, Tommy, you likee cigarette?"): forget political incorrectness, it's the atrocious makeup and dismal accents that make them so hard to watch, consequently undermining much of the grim, fatalistic mood the first two thirds of the film manage to conjure up. Those cast as the prisoners fare much better, with strong turns from Morell and the magnificent Barbara Shelley and a more than respectable supporting cast including Carl Mohner (not really mastering the Dutch accent), Walter Fitzgerald, Michael Goodliffe, Michael Gwynn and Richard Wordsworth. At around 80 minutes the film holds up surprisingly well for the first two-thirds before the war movie heroics and plot contrivances take over as soon as a hidden crate of hand grenades make their appearance and payback is added to the menu.

It's not a film you can recommend unconditionally, but if you can make allowances for the miscasting and the ending it's a pretty decent effort even if it isn't one of Hammer's classics, and Sony's UK DVD offers a fine 2.35:1 widescreen transfer with an excellent booklet with very detailed background information by Hammer historian Marcus Hearn.

After the attack on the US fleet at Pearl Harbour on 7 December 1941, the Japanese occupied Hong Kong, Malaya, Siam, Singapore, Burma and many islands in the Pacific Ocean. The peoples in the occupied countries in South East Asia suffered terribly at the hands of the Japanese occupiers and thousands of allied prisoners of war were kept in camps in horrifying conditions because Japanese philosophy regarded surrendering as an act of shame and betrayal and that people who did this should be harshly treated. Consequently prisoners of war was routinely executed, tortured and worked to death on construction projects including the infamous Burma railway where one allied prisoner of war died for every railway sleeper that was laid.

"The camp on Blood Island" is set in such a camp and when the prisoners get to hear about the Japanese surrender through listening to a radio they secretly built they realised that they had heard this news before their captors and when the Japanese got the news they would likely murder everyone in the camp. The prisoners knew they had nothing to lose by trying to liberate themselves so they set about planning to attack their guards with the makeshift weapons they put together. The film which was directed by Val Guest is harrowing even today, it does not pull any punches and it does not make comforting viewing but it is extremely well made and impressive and a tribute to the brave and resilient allied prisoners of war who had to endure four years of dreadful captivity before liberation finally came to them in August 1945.