Man Behind the Sun (also called Black Sun 731 and Men Behind the Sun; Chinese title: 黑太阳 731, Pinyin: hēi tài yáng 731) is a 1987 Chinese film directed by Mou Tun Fei, about Unit 731, the secret military medical unit of the Imperial Japanese Army during the Second World War.
The film details the various cruel medical experiments Japan's Unit 731 inflicted upon the Chinese & Russian prisoners of war taken in the Sino-Japanese war and Chinese civilian population at the tail-end of World War II. The experiments were done to further Japan's bacteriological weapons, which they thought be the only way to defeat the allied armies. It was based in a remote region in north-east China, a puppet-state known as Manchukuo. The film itself contains little in the way of expository dialogue; what little information offered is in the form of narration.
The film is extremely controversial for its use of actual autopsy footage of a young boy and also for a scene in which a cat is thrown into a room to be eaten alive by thousands upon thousands of starved rats. There is some question as to the legality of the film, since there are laws against animal cruelty in many countries, including China. Some critics have suggested [citation needed] that the cruelty of the cat being eaten alive by starved rats is an analogy of psyche of the Imperial Army, that the Chinese are the rats (numerous and cowed) and the Japanese are the cat (predatory and authoratative) and implies that a benign population can rise up and defeat even the fiercest enemy.
It later surfaced that once the Americans found out about the research that they arranged a deal with Unit 731 whereby they became immune from prosecution in exchange for their data and findings so that they could have the upper hand against the Soviets in germ warfare. [1]
Some contend [citation needed] that the violent treatment of the subject matter degrades any strong message the film might have conveyed, that the events in the film are based on historical evidence that in a more thorough work would have been examined critically, and that the work is little more than repulsive cinematic exploitation.
im a fan of explortation, horror, splatter, and oddball unknown, gross out flicks
and man this one took the cake, i almost feel like never watching it again
but it is actually a important film in it's own little way and should be viewed by everyone, to know why amoung other reasons we got into it with the then fruitcake japanese
The film details the various cruel medical experiments Japan's Unit 731 inflicted upon the Chinese & Russian prisoners of war taken in the Sino-Japanese war and Chinese civilian population at the tail-end of World War II. The experiments were done to further Japan's bacteriological weapons, which they thought be the only way to defeat the allied armies. It was based in a remote region in north-east China, a puppet-state known as Manchukuo. The film itself contains little in the way of expository dialogue; what little information offered is in the form of narration.
The film is extremely controversial for its use of actual autopsy footage of a young boy and also for a scene in which a cat is thrown into a room to be eaten alive by thousands upon thousands of starved rats. There is some question as to the legality of the film, since there are laws against animal cruelty in many countries, including China. Some critics have suggested [citation needed] that the cruelty of the cat being eaten alive by starved rats is an analogy of psyche of the Imperial Army, that the Chinese are the rats (numerous and cowed) and the Japanese are the cat (predatory and authoratative) and implies that a benign population can rise up and defeat even the fiercest enemy.
It later surfaced that once the Americans found out about the research that they arranged a deal with Unit 731 whereby they became immune from prosecution in exchange for their data and findings so that they could have the upper hand against the Soviets in germ warfare. [1]
Some contend [citation needed] that the violent treatment of the subject matter degrades any strong message the film might have conveyed, that the events in the film are based on historical evidence that in a more thorough work would have been examined critically, and that the work is little more than repulsive cinematic exploitation.
im a fan of explortation, horror, splatter, and oddball unknown, gross out flicks
and man this one took the cake, i almost feel like never watching it again
but it is actually a important film in it's own little way and should be viewed by everyone, to know why amoung other reasons we got into it with the then fruitcake japanese