The trivia for House of Bamboo says it is "The first Hollywood film, other than travelogues to shot on location in Japan. However, the movie Tokyo Joe 1949, with Humphrey Bogart, lists in it's trivia, "This was the first movie allowed to film in post-war Japan". Which is right, or is this just semantics and both "are right", just in their own way?
sharemy understanding is Bamboo was the 1st one shot "all on location" in japan, while T.J. was shot mostly in the U.S. with some filming (the first) done in japan, so technically, both claims would be true.
LOVE the scene in the amusement park when the police in the street fire up at the
"ferris wheel" ride, and they fire back down at the street; the crowd just stands there looking up... if someone up high were firing down at the street, i'd be running for cover!
After the initial ambush scene, in which chains were used to strangle the Japanese guards, the point was made that none of them had died. I wondered if this had to do with a postwar cultural sensitivity but by the end of the film, Ryan's character is happily shooting the Japanese cops and even a member of the public, so I must have guessed wrong.
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