The Camp on Blood Island

Having waited years to see this film I was astounded just how bad it is, a Hammer production that has pure cockneys playing Japanese guards!, the acting verges on the utterly bad to utterly impossible!,take for instance long time Hammer fave Michael Ripper who as a Japanese guard bursts out laughing every time he is in a scene, the head guard who is clearly of Indian origin is another badly cast member, the commander of the camp is also another British actor hamming it up, I thought they had wandered off set from an Alladin pantomime!, the premise for all the controversy that it was brutal beyond belief had me scratching my head, i've seen worse in a Tom & Jerry cartoon.

While not as good as the one poster comments, it is by no means as bad as the other reviewer says. Yes, there is some shoddy make-up of the Japanese guards, but if you can ignore that you will find the story itself is good enough to carry the film. A group of Allied p.o.w.s are in a camp controlled by a less than friendly commander. He shoots prisoners for sport and works the rest to death in a local mine. He has also let it be known that if Japan loses the war he will kill all the prisoners. The p.o.w.s find out the war has ended and stage a revolt with homemade weapons and some grenades they had hidden at the bottom of a latrine. Not a world winner but an OK time-waster. G.G.

I saw this movie when I was fairly young and the scenes never left my memory. I could not get over the way the actors looked as if they had just been rescued from real Japanese POW camps. How could they get actors so skinny to play the parts? I thought they were real prisoners. Although shot in black and white the realism is terrifying and not for the faint hearted. It was so intense it's no wonder the politically correct brigade buried it but it was a true story and true to life in it's portrayal. I doubt it could be remade as good but it would be good if they could. One of the most moving movies I have ever seen. Can anyone get me a copy?

Watching this now it is difficult to believe that it was given an X certificate.The violence is mainly kept on screen.The main plot point being whether Andre Morell as chief camp officer should tell the sadistic Japanese camp commandant that the war had ended,since the commandant had said that in such eventuality he would kill all the prisoners.Everyone is sweating buckets despite the fact that it was probably filmed in the local woods.Obviously Japanese actors were a bit thin on the ground so they roped in Michael Ripper,obviously not being chased by a Hammer monster on the day. Nevert he less not a bad effort even if it is no classic.