Samuel Fuller's House of Bamboo has Tokyo as its setting and it assumes the role of another character. Robert Stack is the undercover agent sent to infiltrate Robert Ryan's organized crime empire and this dramatic irony lends the entire film an undercurrent of tension, especially with Ryan showing his brutality and sharp nose for traitors along the way. There is also a love story that complicates things, but it is a mere overlay for the boiling pressures rising from within the secretive relationships. Ryan's arrogance and hubris pitted against Stack's cunning and sly confidence makes for a thrilling watch. It depicts Japan's transitional period of the time (rebuilding the post-war devastation with opportunists taking illegal risks), while also transforming the ending film noir genre of the time into a newly international (and full color, Cinemascope) hybrid that only Fuller could achieve. Enjoyable Hollywood, but with Fuller's thoughtful, incisive approach.
