Inspired by the 1932 Boris Karloff classic, The Mask of Fu Manchu, and starring Françoise Blanchard, who had mesmerised with her performance in Rollin s The Living Dead Girl (1982) the previous year, Sidewalks marks a rare departure for Jean Rollin away from his more usual vampire themes. With Sidewalks of Bangkok Rollin wanted to pay homage to the adventure films that he had loved watching in his youth, and in many ways Sidewalks is a homage to them. Rollin mixes themes of action, crime and mystery while throwing in some scenes of sadistic sex for good measure, creating an almost comic book tribute to his heroes.