Strong and Moving!

A Major Disappointment

Strong acting helps the film overcome an uncertain premise and create characters that hold our attention absolutely.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

Like the proverbial cat with nine lives "Ilsa" (Dyanne Thorne) is back and she has returned to the vocation for which she is best qualified--as the warden of a Soviet prison in Siberia known as "Gulag 14". Further, considering that the year is 1953 and Joseph Stalin is the leader of the Soviet Union, Ilsa pretty much has a free hand to do whatever she wants to the prisoners. That said, true to her nature, that means this movie will consist of plenty of torture and brutality along with a few sex scenes involving the beautiful Dyanne Thorne. Unfortunately, unlike the previous two films in the series ("Ilsa, She-Wolf of this SS" and "Ilsa, Harem Keeper of the Oil Sheiks") none of these scenes were as polished as in the two preceding movies and as a result this particular motion picture failed to achieve the same standards. In my opinion, it was unnecessarily raw and sleazy and lacking in both eroticism and depth. I have rated the movie accordingly. Followed by the 4th (and last) film in the series, "Ilsa, The Wicked Warden".

This was an excellent film. Later I saw the others, and I still like this one the best. It was different. You end up clapping and cheering for the KGB when they come in like the cavalry in an old western. That was different. Saw this as a second feature, we went to see the other movie, and ended up seeing this one too. This was far better than the other movie, "It's not the size that counts", which had James Bond's M, Bernard Lee.This movie has action, shoot outs, chases, gory deaths, sex, and some tense situations. Watching it again, 20 years later on VHS, was not as good as in the theater. But it is still a good movie.

This film tries to hard to be more than it can be, and fails miserably. It starts with the the usual exploitation fare, with Ilsa this time serving as mistress of a Stalinist USSR-era Siberian gulag, indulging in prisoner torture and sexual deviations, ho-hum. Then inexplicably, the film moves forward in time in 70's Canada (with a completely un-aged Ilsa, duh), with Ilsa as leader of a prostitution cartel, and the film turning to a sort-of adventure crossover, replete with ninja acrobatics and machine-gun firepower. Duh, duh and duh some more. The worst part has to be the laughable ending, with Ilsa being left stranded in some icy desolate landscape, just outside Montreal? Lol.

"Ilsa, The Tigress of Siberia" is an okay entry most of the time.**SPOILERS**Running the Gulag 14 prison in Siberia, Ilsa, (Dyanne Thorne) uses her various torture methods to keep the prisoners in line. When the list of new recruits shows up to begin their punishment, she has an excuse to use her methods once again, using them to rule the camp with an iron fist. Finding that prisoner Andrei Chikurin, (Michael Morin) is unbending in his stead, she tries to ever-amounting forms of torture to break him, but when news comes of the camp's impending closure, she tries to eradicate it and all evidence of what happened, leaving him for dead. Escaping without her knowledge, he finally accidentally comes across her years later as the head of a prostitute-house ring in Montreal, and once she finds out that he is a former prisoner of her camp, she tries to tie up her loose ends once and for all.The News: This one wasn't all that bad, and did have some good points. The fact that there's some really nice sleaze moments in here when necessary is a great plus. The nudity in here is really nice, coming close to the original in terms of quantity, and that's not a bad sign. From the inventive sex scenes with her herself, where she sometimes takes on two at once in raunchier scenes than anything else would showcase, and the fact that the later half of the film is about a prostitute ring is the perfect catalyst for much more of it. The scenes in there, from the intense massage to the undressing and the actual scenes of them all going at it in there are pretty much what has come to be expected in these kinds of scenes. There's only the feeling that none of this comes off as sleazy as it did before, since none of it is really dirty or disgusting, as it was in the past, or merely showing it because it could. That's also the main difference with everything in the film, as it features the same stuff but none of it is dirty or sleazy as it could've been as they're not presented in that light. The torture scenes in the Gulag part are actually really great and brutal, and again, not as graphic as what came before in the series, come off as very cruel; and creative. The tiger pit is the greatest idea, where a cage above the pit with the snarling creature below leads to some really tense scenes before the inevitable happens, and the dunking in the ice water between two points spread out on the ice is sheer genius. The later scenes aren't that great, as the ones in the house are great in theory but produce really cheesy scenes when they're fears are realized through the virtual-reality program. These are so far removed from the tone of the film that it's hard to really understand their inclusion, or why they're really fears at all when done so cheaply, taking the sting right out of the sequences. It does make up for them with two really nice action scenes, including an incredibly fun sequence in the prison where they close it down and remove all traces of the prison, where they round up or shoot the prisoners, torch the remains and everything else, and the struggles and opportunities at fighting back while with the fire are really fun and action-packed. The finale, a confrontation at the house between the operatives and the guards is bloody, violent and really fun, being quite long and actually features a lot of good stuff about it, which ends the movie on a high note. All these things combined, this one turns out rather nicely.The Final Verdict: While not the greatest entry in the genre, this one does get very entertaining at times and is a decent cap to the series. Give it a shot if you're a fan of the series or have an urge to see this one, but the fact that it is so different from the other ones in the series is something fans have to get over.Rated R: Full Nudity, Graphic Violence, some Language and a few mild sex scenes