Girls of the White Orchid

1983
5.1| 1h36m| en
Details

In Los Angeles, naive and lonely waitress and aspirant singer Carol finds an advertisement for a job opportunity in Tokyo. Traveling to Japan to work at the White Orchid nightclub, she discovers the scheme of prostitution in the club that belongs to Yakuza. Alone, without money and her passport, she is protected by Shiro, but pressed by the managers Madame Mori and her husband Hatanaka to be receptive to client's proposals.

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Reviews

Pacionsbo Absolutely Fantastic
ActuallyGlimmer The best films of this genre always show a path and provide a takeaway for being a better person.
Guillelmina The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.
Fleur Actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.
PeterMitchell-506-564364 Death Ride To Osaka is quite a harrowing film, where at the end of this, from our lead's perspective, we too feel drained as we've been put through this poor girl's ordeal. A vulnerable girl (Leigh) answers an ad for a hostess/ singer, and boy, is she mislead. The ads a front for a sex slavery ring. This is an all too real situation, where our innocents who show promise, whether it's in singing, acting, modelling, travel to Asian countries where it's not long before they're hooked on drugs, and are selling their bodies, where the crime syndicates profit big time. Here our lass, is a promising singer, where here in Tokyo, is not all she ends up doing. Defying the bastards who are using her for sex, she goes to the authorities to no avail. She is truly trapped. The boyfriend, a marine, who returns home, sets out after her, he too describing his girlfriend as vulnerable. Death Ride doesn't go for the sex or nudity either. There's little of either. It takes it's subject from a realistic standpoint, where we share Carol's journey and plight to escape this hell hole. And when the girls complain too much, they're sent on that death ride, where in Osaka, it's a much deeper hell. An older woman who's sent there, escapes, and is run down. A younger woman at the start, protesting to an older John about touching her, we revisit her later where she now looks older and highly drugged, forming a lazy speech pattern. Leigh fits the bill superbly amongst other good players. Although a t.v. movie. this is an eye opener for teens out there who have stars in their eyes, not to be duped by every ad they see, where this film serves as a forewarning to the dangers that are hugely present in far away countries.
charlytully After studying the four comments made previously to this one, I see no need to do more than fill in the oversights from same. Obviously, anyone commenting on this title on IMDb has most likely seen a cheap DVD version (if and when the Jennifer Jason Leigh Collection comes out, this virtual public service announcement will NOT make the cut). The cheesiness of my DVD packagers ("Kreative Digital Entertainment" and "Hearst Entertainment") is exemplified by their clearly listing this 1983 flick as a "2004" film in the middle of the back cover. But just because these rip-off artists (who offer absolutely no extras--not even a trailer) are anachronistic, that's no excuse to retroactively fault this movie or JJL's Carol Heath character for being too naive, since it would not be until the next century that Dateline NBC ground out umpteen thousand internet sex stings. At the time this true-life warning sounded, many of the 20-something women I knew could well have been suckered in by the make-your-fortune-in-Tokyo gambit. After all, not much later an unknown never-was named Cecil Fielder returned to the U.S. from the Japanese off-off Broadway and immediately became the first major leaguer to bash out a 50-homer season in decades.
Lechuguilla Oriental bad guys entice a sweet, naive young American girl named Carol (Jennifer Jason Leigh) to Tokyo, ostensibly to further her singing career. But the bad guys run a prostitution ring out of a Tokyo club called the White Orchid. And Carol's real job is that of a prostitute. Carol resists, and her boyfriend leaves the U.S. to rescue her. Based on a real life event, this made-for-TV film is sub-par.For one thing, Leigh is miscast. She's too young and too innocent looking. Another problem is that beyond the basic premise, there just isn't that much to the story. Pacing is slow. Characters spend a lot of time walking around on the streets. Ancillary singers sing and perform in the club. All of which add up to ... filler.The film has a cheap, made-for-TV look and feel. Music is nondescript. Acting is stilted. The film's ending is predictable and visually unimaginative. "Girls Of The White Orchid" is rather like an inferior imitation of an extended episode of Hawaii Five-O. I kept waiting for Steve McGarrett to show up to tell his partner: "book'em, Danno".
triple8 I admit I rented this purely because the above named actress was in it so I felt it must be good. While I did not know this was based on a true story until I found IMDb, that doesn't change the fact that the movie was of low caliber even though it gives the story in general an extra dose of heartbreak.Let me start with the positves. Good acting. Well what else to expect from Ms Lee? She is a top quality actress and she gives it her all here. Actually everyone was believable. The movie was a bit frightening at points in its believability.But the negatives outweigh the positives. here's the problem.This was WAY to movie of the weekish.(which maybe it was-I had thought it was a straight to video movie until I read otherwise on here.) But the movie makers had the ingredients to make a good picture-sad, realistic subject matter, and one of the most talented actresses of our generation. Unfortunately that didn't happen.Instead, we get a picture that seemed at times almost exploitative. When I rented it I had no idea how much nudity there was and it seemed to me a lot of things were done for shock value. This just reminded me of those late night b movies that run when most people are asleep and don't know their on. Knowing now that this was based on a true story it seems, even more so, that stronger material could have been developed so the acotrs/actresses would have had more to work with. I admit I rented it based on the fact that Jennifer was in it. But I expected more quality and there should have been more. I would unfortunately not give this more then a 3 or 4 out of 10-though higher for the acting. It's to Jennifer's credit that even in a weak picture she still steals the show.