I'm not really sure where to begin with this film. On the one hand, I feel like the story of Unit 731 and the horrors that happened there is a story that needs to be told, so I feel that this film has some merit if only because it raises awareness about a horrific point in history that seems to get glossed over all too often. That being said, the subject matter could have been handled much better. This movie just isn't really that good, nor is it terribly realistic. For some reason, all the victims in the film appear to be Russian despite the fact that historically, the vast majority of the victims of 731's experiments were Chinese. On top of that, all the victims look like super models, complete with perfect eye make-up and neatly waxed pubic hair. They look like they belong on the set of a fashion shoot rather than a POW camp. Historically, the staff of Unit 731 were highly trained scientists and medical professionals, however, in this film, "surgeries" are portrayed with the doctors just hacking and jabbing away haphazardly with blood unrealistically spurting in every direction. I also found myself wondering how many of the "experiments" portrayed in the film actually took place. While the human experimentation of 731 was no doubt cruel and inhumane, I was under the impression that the experiments at least had some medical and scientific reasoning behind them, whereas many of the experiments portrayed in Philosophy of a Knife just seemed totally pointless, not to mention highly unrealistic. Inserting a cockroach into the vagina, tearing off the victim's face, and then having the cockroach come out her mouth? Give me a break. And then, of course, there's the length of the film. 4 hours? Really? Editing seems to be a foreign concept to the director. The torture scenes just drag on and on and on, to the point where I found myself becoming desensitized and, frankly, bored, despite the graphic nature of the scenes. I literally caught myself falling asleep halfway through the second half of the film. The film could have easily been half the length. I did like the fact that the film attempted to humanize a couple of the Japanese staff characters, showing them grappling with feeling sympathy for the victims while still being brainwashed into believing that they were acting for the greater good of their country. I found that aspect of the film very interesting. All in all, Philosophy of a Knife is mostly just a bad, low-budget, poorly edited and acted gorefest that tries pretentiously to pass itself off as an artistic and realistic portrayal of historical events. It has a few redeeming qualities, but if you're interested in learning about Unit 731, you'd be better off just reading the Wikipedia page on it and saving yourself 4 hours.
31 Reviews
Tries way too hard.
BA_Harrison6 November 2018
Watching Philosophy of a Knife, it seems to me as though writer/director Andrey Iskanov considered T.F. Mou's 1988 Unit 731 shocker Man Behind The Sun to be A) not harrowing enough, and B) not nearly long enough: his film tackles the same harsh subject matter but in even more detail, and clocks in at over four hours. Not a film for the casual viewer, then.
A documentary consisting of genuine archive material, interview footage, and gory re-enactments of assorted atrocities, Philosophy delves into a world of callous, inhuman horror: the hideous experiments carried out on WWII prisoners in Unit 731, a Japanese biological and chemical warfare research complex. The film is, at turns, distressing, boring, and laughable: the historical imagery effectively drives home the depravity of war, the interview scenes, monotonous voiceover and interminable shots of heavy snowfall are sleep-inducing, and the splatter is way too excessive to be taken seriously.
Whereas, in reality, 731's unfortunate victims were primarily Chinese, here they are mostly pretty young caucasian women with far too much mascara and not enough pubic hair (was the 'landing strip' a thing back then?). The scientists carry out their grisly experiments with gusto, covering the walls and themselves in gore in the process, but the special effects aren't convincing enough to rival Mou's movie in terms of nastiness (Man Behind The Sun featured genuine autopsy footage and was rumoured to have used a real cadaver in its decompression chamber scene; Iskanov gives us rubbery prosthetic body parts and watery blood).
Amongst the 'so extreme they're actually funny' scenes, we get the removal of a fetus, extraction of teeth, the rape of a young woman by a man with syphilis, plague victims, frostbite experiments, face removal, phosphor burns, exposure to x-rays, gassing, and assorted clumsy vivisection. There's also a lot of nudity from both sexes, the most graphic moment featuring a large cockroach and a woman's nether regions.
With the film stretched out over such a long time (it's split into two halves, both of which are longer than most documentaries), and with risible attempts at art-house pretentiousness amidst all of the bodily fluids, the film is often gruelling for the wrong reasons. Man Behind The Sun remains the better and more disturbing movie by a long chalk.
I imagine, however, that no film will ever come close to capturing the real horror of Unit 731.
A documentary consisting of genuine archive material, interview footage, and gory re-enactments of assorted atrocities, Philosophy delves into a world of callous, inhuman horror: the hideous experiments carried out on WWII prisoners in Unit 731, a Japanese biological and chemical warfare research complex. The film is, at turns, distressing, boring, and laughable: the historical imagery effectively drives home the depravity of war, the interview scenes, monotonous voiceover and interminable shots of heavy snowfall are sleep-inducing, and the splatter is way too excessive to be taken seriously.
Whereas, in reality, 731's unfortunate victims were primarily Chinese, here they are mostly pretty young caucasian women with far too much mascara and not enough pubic hair (was the 'landing strip' a thing back then?). The scientists carry out their grisly experiments with gusto, covering the walls and themselves in gore in the process, but the special effects aren't convincing enough to rival Mou's movie in terms of nastiness (Man Behind The Sun featured genuine autopsy footage and was rumoured to have used a real cadaver in its decompression chamber scene; Iskanov gives us rubbery prosthetic body parts and watery blood).
Amongst the 'so extreme they're actually funny' scenes, we get the removal of a fetus, extraction of teeth, the rape of a young woman by a man with syphilis, plague victims, frostbite experiments, face removal, phosphor burns, exposure to x-rays, gassing, and assorted clumsy vivisection. There's also a lot of nudity from both sexes, the most graphic moment featuring a large cockroach and a woman's nether regions.
With the film stretched out over such a long time (it's split into two halves, both of which are longer than most documentaries), and with risible attempts at art-house pretentiousness amidst all of the bodily fluids, the film is often gruelling for the wrong reasons. Man Behind The Sun remains the better and more disturbing movie by a long chalk.
I imagine, however, that no film will ever come close to capturing the real horror of Unit 731.
Gross and boring. An odd combo.
chzzyg3 July 2023
I can sum up this movie in three words: Boring, Gruesome, and semi-educational; but since reviews need more words, most people are watching this movie to see what a horror/documentary looks like. It's not that special. The horror aspect is pretty gross and fairly well done for the low budget they had to work with, but it gets old fast being a four hour flesh-fest. The documentary side of it seems like it's partially full of crap, and partially more interesting than the horror side which drags on and on and on...and on. As mentioned, the budget they had to work with was luckily not that great because there were moments that had me wanting to vomit had they been any more realistic. A lot of the time moments are left to the imagination because the flesh effects are often bloody rags and rubber chunks; something to be grateful for in some scenes. This movie is way too long for what it does, likely an artistic choice to get the point across of the horrors of war and what mankind is capable of, but I just kept losing interest. If you feel like you want to see it, be ready for a very long series of mutilations broken up by occasional historical tidbits.
Major disappointment, a freak show disguised as an art film
squeezebox5 January 2009
This movie is four hours long for one reason: director Andrey Iskanov wanted it to be. Lacking enough actual subject matter to warrant a four hour running time, he compensates by having virtually every scene go on for at least twice as long as necessary and inserting numerous shots of snow falling, each of which goes on for several minutes. I would say there's close to a half hour of footage of snow in this movie.
We get surgeons meticulously putting on rubber gloves, prisoners being led down hallways, soldiers trudging through snow, bodies being chopped up, flesh being scraped off a skull, and countless other such sequences all in glorious real time. If tedium and banality are what Iskanov was going for he succeeded admirably.
PHILOSOPHY OF A KNIFE is so devoid of any redeeming quality in its current state it barely even warrants discussion. One of the few positive things I can say about it is that I can see a riveting avant-garde horror movie hidden beneath all the baggage. Had he cut out 2/3 of the running time and tightened up all of his individual scenes, this could have been one of the most effective exercises in Hell-On-Earth sensory overload.
Of course, in an introduction which brings new meaning to the word "pontification," Iskanov informs us that this is not a horror movie, though he expects us unsophisticated westerners to think it is. So maybe I'm even wrong about that. Maybe there's NOTHING good to say about this movie.
Watching this movie has forced me to re-assess my opinion of MEN BEHIND THE SUN, which I thought was little more than an exploitive freak show as well. However, in MEN BEHIND THE SUN director T.F. Mou presented the atrocities in a brutally matter-of-fact manner and allowed us to sympathize somewhat with the prisoners. Now I'm thinking that Mou's film is at least somewhat earnest in its depictions of the horrors of Unit 731.
In PHILOSOPHY, Iskanov re-creates the experiments as highly stylized set-pieces that look more like a Nine Inch Nails music video than an attempt to hit home the true horror of these activities. All (and I mean ALL) the prisoners who are tortured are young, good-looking Russian kids with no backstory whatsoever. I wonder how many female prisoners-of-war during World War II had perfect breasts and shaved pubic hair. And while MEN BEHIND THE SUN acknowledged that Russian, European and American prisoners did fall victim to Unit 731, PHILOSOPHY completely ignores the fact that the vast majority of victims were Chinese.
And if what you want is nothing more than blood and guts, even that fails to live up to the hype. The effects (which Iskanov did himself) are amateurish and sloppy. Only a sequence in which a woman's teeth are pulled is even somewhat effective, not because it's well-done, but because pretty much everyone can imagine how much that would hurt. OLDBOY's teeth pulling scene is far more chilling and horrific than this.
This long, boring, dishonest, self-indulgent movie is a major waste of time. I want my four plus hours back.
We get surgeons meticulously putting on rubber gloves, prisoners being led down hallways, soldiers trudging through snow, bodies being chopped up, flesh being scraped off a skull, and countless other such sequences all in glorious real time. If tedium and banality are what Iskanov was going for he succeeded admirably.
PHILOSOPHY OF A KNIFE is so devoid of any redeeming quality in its current state it barely even warrants discussion. One of the few positive things I can say about it is that I can see a riveting avant-garde horror movie hidden beneath all the baggage. Had he cut out 2/3 of the running time and tightened up all of his individual scenes, this could have been one of the most effective exercises in Hell-On-Earth sensory overload.
Of course, in an introduction which brings new meaning to the word "pontification," Iskanov informs us that this is not a horror movie, though he expects us unsophisticated westerners to think it is. So maybe I'm even wrong about that. Maybe there's NOTHING good to say about this movie.
Watching this movie has forced me to re-assess my opinion of MEN BEHIND THE SUN, which I thought was little more than an exploitive freak show as well. However, in MEN BEHIND THE SUN director T.F. Mou presented the atrocities in a brutally matter-of-fact manner and allowed us to sympathize somewhat with the prisoners. Now I'm thinking that Mou's film is at least somewhat earnest in its depictions of the horrors of Unit 731.
In PHILOSOPHY, Iskanov re-creates the experiments as highly stylized set-pieces that look more like a Nine Inch Nails music video than an attempt to hit home the true horror of these activities. All (and I mean ALL) the prisoners who are tortured are young, good-looking Russian kids with no backstory whatsoever. I wonder how many female prisoners-of-war during World War II had perfect breasts and shaved pubic hair. And while MEN BEHIND THE SUN acknowledged that Russian, European and American prisoners did fall victim to Unit 731, PHILOSOPHY completely ignores the fact that the vast majority of victims were Chinese.
And if what you want is nothing more than blood and guts, even that fails to live up to the hype. The effects (which Iskanov did himself) are amateurish and sloppy. Only a sequence in which a woman's teeth are pulled is even somewhat effective, not because it's well-done, but because pretty much everyone can imagine how much that would hurt. OLDBOY's teeth pulling scene is far more chilling and horrific than this.
This long, boring, dishonest, self-indulgent movie is a major waste of time. I want my four plus hours back.
you're better off gnawing your own appendages for better a quality entertainment and insight into the Japanese war atrociousness.
anniemaychaplin25 May 2012
I am going to say now, as someone who disliked 'The Human Centipede' for the intended purpose and found it bad enough to be funny, you are better off watching that.
The movie is shot most probably on a DSLR in black and white. The conversion into black and white was unbearably Grey with obnoxious 'old film' effects. Overall the filming is very amateur, shaky and melodramatic. While there is a small handful of clever and interesting shots and overlays, most of them look pretentious and try-hard. Think 16 year old girl film project and windows movie maker.
The prisoners are all white females obviously cast from America's next top model, and a couple of Russian men. This is largely historically inaccurate considering in real life most of the prisoners were Chinese or Korean of all ages, not just a bunch of white hipsters. AND FOR GOD'S SAKE WHO THE F**K THOUGHT PUTTING MASCARA ON PRISONERS WAS A GOOD IDEA?
The acting itself was overall tacky and cringey to watch. The Asian nurse was the only decent actress, even then, her face is covered with a medical mask most of the time, and her makeup is far too modern, she has ipod headphones dangling out of her pocket in one scene, which is laughable. The cast of prisoners are healthy, white, middle class, attractive, plump, groomed and moody-teenage looking, this would be fine.. if you know.. they weren't supposed to be starving, suffering and psychologically disturbed war prisoners. It is beyond me why the producer thought he wanted the prisoners to look so prime and polished, I'm astounded to think that anyone with half a brain would think to have actresses with long brushed and shiny hair, perfect makeup (with absolutely no attempt in making them look tired or haggard)and plump curvy figures, cast in a film about some of the most malnourished and tormented prisoners of all time. The Asian male doctor looks like he's just stepped out of a Korean boy band, they could have at the very least styled his hair to look 1940's. Why is he wearing eyeliner?!
The entire cast are unconvincing and substandard actors. As a very squeamish person, i didn't even flinch. The gore was well produced in places, but the actors couldn't carry it. Screams of what was supposed to be agony looked like dodgy orgasms in some sort of soviet bdsm porn. The prisoners are calm and serene being led around. There is no kicking, struggle or fuss, not even the guards restraining them as they lead them to the operating room. They just lay down on the operating table compliantly, which is ridiculous.
There is a rape scene in the film that is just completely ridiculous and had me laughing at how poorly acted it was.
The whole film is poorly written and very historically inaccurate, therefore making it very difficult to believe. There is no way in hell a Japanese war doctor is going to flirt with a prisoner, i felt this was some sort of mockery , and absolutely out of place. I can see the director trying to write in some romance to make the movie ever-so-slightly less dull, but it was just utterly disrespectful to the rape victims of the real unit 713 and to a degree racially insensitive and ignorant of the well documented historic Japanese attitudes to foreigners. Other historic inaccuracies included sedation. The real Unit 713 preformed abortions and vivisection's without anesthetic, painkillers or any sort of sedation, this not only would have been much more interesting to see on screen, but made a world of difference in historical accuracy. Operations were also preformed laughably, doctors removing all sorts of organs like picking tomatoes out of a salad, while patients in pristine makeup look barely phased but let out the occasional girlish scream. Not even a drip of sweat on their faces or their lipstick smudging.
Props used, such as a toy baby are again laughable.
The only positive thing i can comment on is the well made opening credits and mixing of archive footage to trendy music.
The film is a massive waste of time overall, and you're better off gnawing your own appendages for better a quality entertainment and insight into the Japanese war atrociousness.
The movie is shot most probably on a DSLR in black and white. The conversion into black and white was unbearably Grey with obnoxious 'old film' effects. Overall the filming is very amateur, shaky and melodramatic. While there is a small handful of clever and interesting shots and overlays, most of them look pretentious and try-hard. Think 16 year old girl film project and windows movie maker.
The prisoners are all white females obviously cast from America's next top model, and a couple of Russian men. This is largely historically inaccurate considering in real life most of the prisoners were Chinese or Korean of all ages, not just a bunch of white hipsters. AND FOR GOD'S SAKE WHO THE F**K THOUGHT PUTTING MASCARA ON PRISONERS WAS A GOOD IDEA?
The acting itself was overall tacky and cringey to watch. The Asian nurse was the only decent actress, even then, her face is covered with a medical mask most of the time, and her makeup is far too modern, she has ipod headphones dangling out of her pocket in one scene, which is laughable. The cast of prisoners are healthy, white, middle class, attractive, plump, groomed and moody-teenage looking, this would be fine.. if you know.. they weren't supposed to be starving, suffering and psychologically disturbed war prisoners. It is beyond me why the producer thought he wanted the prisoners to look so prime and polished, I'm astounded to think that anyone with half a brain would think to have actresses with long brushed and shiny hair, perfect makeup (with absolutely no attempt in making them look tired or haggard)and plump curvy figures, cast in a film about some of the most malnourished and tormented prisoners of all time. The Asian male doctor looks like he's just stepped out of a Korean boy band, they could have at the very least styled his hair to look 1940's. Why is he wearing eyeliner?!
The entire cast are unconvincing and substandard actors. As a very squeamish person, i didn't even flinch. The gore was well produced in places, but the actors couldn't carry it. Screams of what was supposed to be agony looked like dodgy orgasms in some sort of soviet bdsm porn. The prisoners are calm and serene being led around. There is no kicking, struggle or fuss, not even the guards restraining them as they lead them to the operating room. They just lay down on the operating table compliantly, which is ridiculous.
There is a rape scene in the film that is just completely ridiculous and had me laughing at how poorly acted it was.
The whole film is poorly written and very historically inaccurate, therefore making it very difficult to believe. There is no way in hell a Japanese war doctor is going to flirt with a prisoner, i felt this was some sort of mockery , and absolutely out of place. I can see the director trying to write in some romance to make the movie ever-so-slightly less dull, but it was just utterly disrespectful to the rape victims of the real unit 713 and to a degree racially insensitive and ignorant of the well documented historic Japanese attitudes to foreigners. Other historic inaccuracies included sedation. The real Unit 713 preformed abortions and vivisection's without anesthetic, painkillers or any sort of sedation, this not only would have been much more interesting to see on screen, but made a world of difference in historical accuracy. Operations were also preformed laughably, doctors removing all sorts of organs like picking tomatoes out of a salad, while patients in pristine makeup look barely phased but let out the occasional girlish scream. Not even a drip of sweat on their faces or their lipstick smudging.
Props used, such as a toy baby are again laughable.
The only positive thing i can comment on is the well made opening credits and mixing of archive footage to trendy music.
The film is a massive waste of time overall, and you're better off gnawing your own appendages for better a quality entertainment and insight into the Japanese war atrociousness.
Biased and Poorly Composed
C-homecutler26 August 2011
The small portions of this movie that have any merit, mostly the archival footage which is in some cases quite well applied, are over shadowed by a number of glaring flaws. The narrator blatantly overlooks other widespread abuses and atrocities committed by the whole of the Japanese military, instead claiming that any injustices were simply in response to pressures from the conflict with Russia. To try and whitewash Unit 731's role as a defencive measure is historically inaccurate, and since the Philosophy of a Knife claims to be a sober look at historical events, it fails on that level. I would say while there are few other movies that focus primarily on Imperial Japan's forays into chemical and biological warfare, this one does not ear points for filling a niche void.
See something else on Unit 731
frequency-210 September 2008
This epic is 4 hours long. Much of that 4 hours is the exterior of a building which may or may not be the one in question.
In a prologue the director and I think one of the producers tell us, among other things, that they "did not research" a lot of the facts.
But they say their work is based on facts and that the movie is supposed to be about death and war....
There is a fair amount of interesting stuff in the movie, enough for maybe 90 minutes. But not 4 hours. I think they wanted to give the viewer some sense of ennui by showing the building the falling snow from this angle, from that angle, from another angle...all with no narration over and over. It seemed like about 2 minutes of story and 5 minutes of exterior of building in the falling snow for 4 hours.
I may be exaggerating, but not much. As for the story....
Those who know about Unit 731 may be offended by this film as an effort to cash in on a grisly reputation. Others may be offended by it's portrayal of one American and several Russians as the victims of Unit 731. I am pretty sure the majority of victims were a very diverse group consisting of P.O.W.s from all who fought against Japan, Chinese locals and even Japanese criminals. Pregnant women as well as children were also prey to the heinous Japanese "doctors" of Unit 731.
Regardless, the whole thing to me comes off as lame bondage/torture-porn. That you MIGHT get some idea of a story out of if you take notes when they are actually speaking. Even if you are looking for Bondage/toture-porn keep the remote handy, you have a lot of the building in the falling snow from this angle, from that angle, from another angle...all with no narration over and over to fast forward through.
In a prologue the director and I think one of the producers tell us, among other things, that they "did not research" a lot of the facts.
But they say their work is based on facts and that the movie is supposed to be about death and war....
There is a fair amount of interesting stuff in the movie, enough for maybe 90 minutes. But not 4 hours. I think they wanted to give the viewer some sense of ennui by showing the building the falling snow from this angle, from that angle, from another angle...all with no narration over and over. It seemed like about 2 minutes of story and 5 minutes of exterior of building in the falling snow for 4 hours.
I may be exaggerating, but not much. As for the story....
Those who know about Unit 731 may be offended by this film as an effort to cash in on a grisly reputation. Others may be offended by it's portrayal of one American and several Russians as the victims of Unit 731. I am pretty sure the majority of victims were a very diverse group consisting of P.O.W.s from all who fought against Japan, Chinese locals and even Japanese criminals. Pregnant women as well as children were also prey to the heinous Japanese "doctors" of Unit 731.
Regardless, the whole thing to me comes off as lame bondage/torture-porn. That you MIGHT get some idea of a story out of if you take notes when they are actually speaking. Even if you are looking for Bondage/toture-porn keep the remote handy, you have a lot of the building in the falling snow from this angle, from that angle, from another angle...all with no narration over and over to fast forward through.
Self indulgent dreck
kgoodin931 August 2010
I'm rarely moved to comment on movies and books because others have generally already expressed everything I have to say. No need to repeat.
However, this movie is so appallingly bad that it deserves every terrible review we can collectively muster.
As a documentary, it fails. Too many inaccuracies, too much left out, too many things left unexplained. The man whose interview answers are interspersed throughout was not directly involved in any of it and had nothing new to contribute. The narration, delivered in all its monotone glory, is insipid and adds no insight. Of course, despite purporting to convey a true story, it's not billed as a documentary so I suppose you could forgive the faults. But seriously, this is laughably inaccurate.
As a horror film, it fails. Mostly because it's too long by at least 2 hours, has no momentum and is, frankly, boring. Yes, the experimentation scenes are graphic. But there are only a handful of them – maybe one every 20 minutes? - so this can't even qualify as a gore fest. Besides, the effects are amateurish at best, and no self-respecting horror fan would be impressed. The infamous tooth-pulling scene is shockingly fake. There are numerous lengthy scenes of prisoners sitting around waiting – is Iskanov trying to create suspense? I have this bad habit of doggedly finishing a book or a movie I really don't like or actively loathe, just because I hate leaving something unfinished. I don't usually regret this because it's a conscious decision and I feel I have a better idea of the work as a whole if I actually finish watching or reading it. I regret wasting my time with this movie.
It was some of the most self-indulgent dreck I've ever come across. Iskanov's repetitive use of silent snow-falling-on-gray-building scenes were maddening. I started timing them, and they ranged from about 2 to 6 minutes, making them ideal for bathroom breaks, walking the dog or fixing a sandwich. If you wanted to skip over the Russian guy's interview scenes too, you'd have enough time for a solid power nap.
Actually, don't bother with it at all. Then you don't have to mess with fast forwarding and all that.
However, this movie is so appallingly bad that it deserves every terrible review we can collectively muster.
As a documentary, it fails. Too many inaccuracies, too much left out, too many things left unexplained. The man whose interview answers are interspersed throughout was not directly involved in any of it and had nothing new to contribute. The narration, delivered in all its monotone glory, is insipid and adds no insight. Of course, despite purporting to convey a true story, it's not billed as a documentary so I suppose you could forgive the faults. But seriously, this is laughably inaccurate.
As a horror film, it fails. Mostly because it's too long by at least 2 hours, has no momentum and is, frankly, boring. Yes, the experimentation scenes are graphic. But there are only a handful of them – maybe one every 20 minutes? - so this can't even qualify as a gore fest. Besides, the effects are amateurish at best, and no self-respecting horror fan would be impressed. The infamous tooth-pulling scene is shockingly fake. There are numerous lengthy scenes of prisoners sitting around waiting – is Iskanov trying to create suspense? I have this bad habit of doggedly finishing a book or a movie I really don't like or actively loathe, just because I hate leaving something unfinished. I don't usually regret this because it's a conscious decision and I feel I have a better idea of the work as a whole if I actually finish watching or reading it. I regret wasting my time with this movie.
It was some of the most self-indulgent dreck I've ever come across. Iskanov's repetitive use of silent snow-falling-on-gray-building scenes were maddening. I started timing them, and they ranged from about 2 to 6 minutes, making them ideal for bathroom breaks, walking the dog or fixing a sandwich. If you wanted to skip over the Russian guy's interview scenes too, you'd have enough time for a solid power nap.
Actually, don't bother with it at all. Then you don't have to mess with fast forwarding and all that.
Watch it on fastforward
MaddHatterDeplorable8 November 2020
Brutal but uneven.
Darkweasel9 June 2010
Warning: Spoilers
A four hour pseudo documentary about the atrocities carried out at Japanese chemical and bacterial research facility Unit 731, based in China during World War II.
Desperately uneven, it veers erratically from an interesting and informative documentary to a black and white art-house movie and then to a (still black and white) extreme gorefest. The recreations of the experiments carried out by Unit 731 are brutal and horrific but it's ultimately the real stock footage that has the most impact. You can recreate death as many times and as accurately as you like but it fades into insignificance when compared with reality.
A major problem with the film is the acting of the victims. None of them struggle, scream, cry or show any emotion whatsoever as they are strapped onto operating tables and chairs, led out naked into the freezing snow or hooked up with electrodes and wires. In fact, the expression on one female victim, as her unborn baby is ripped piece by piece from her (all in the utmost graphic detail) seems to suggest that she's actually enjoying the experience. This happens a few times throughout the torture scenes and it completely undermines them.
Another problem is the amount of time that you stay with each victim/experiment. There is far more shock value in watching somebody having three or four teeth removed without anaesthetic than twenty of them. This kind of real life horror is far more effective when described with words and occasional flashes of gore, rather than lingering on every drop of blood spilt in extreme close up.
It's a gruelling experience and maybe that's what the director wanted - to have you sit through every uncomfortable, nauseating moment. But the problem there is every second you watch it is another second you realise it's just make-up effects and it lessens the very impact it's trying to make. Yet one thirty second sequence of real bodies piled up in a laboratory has a hundred times the desired effect.
It also doesn't help that most of the victims portrayed are westerners. Although hundreds of westerners were killed for sure within the facility, the vast majority of Maruta (another word for prisoners, which translates as "logs") were Chinese. One can only assume the reason for this was a combination of the Japanese pretending the occupation of China and the human experiments carried out in Harbin never actually happened, and the Chinese not wanting any part in such an exploitative film, no matter how well it wrapped itself up in it's documentary style, humanitarian message. Therefore most of the actors are Russian, and again, more impact is taken away.
As I've previously mentioned, every torture scene would have been more effective with less gore. However, of the experiments on display, the most noteworthy were the frostbite experiment (a man walked out naked into the snow, tied to a post and doused with boiling hot and then freezing cold water), the decompression chamber, radiation torture (watching someone's face slowly burn), phosphorous being placed on a man's face and ignited, burning, exploding and re-igniting constantly, the aforementioned foetus extraction (it may be badly acted but it's still brutal as hell) and plague infection (watching someone bleeding their liquefied internal organs from their rectum is never pretty). Also, the scene where an infected cockroach is forced inside a woman's (actual) vagina in close-up is highly uncomfortable viewing.
At absolutely no point can this film ever be called entertaining, although bizarrely, there is one scene near the end which is almost beautiful in it's execution. It still ends in an explosion of blood and brains but in a totally different way than anything before it. It's actually quite moving in it's own violent way.
This film, in my opinion anyway, should only be viewed how I went about it - as an educational aid on the history of war, death and inhumanity. There is no casual amusement to be had here. It is not fun. It is not entertainment, and it is not for the weak of stomach.
Desperately uneven, it veers erratically from an interesting and informative documentary to a black and white art-house movie and then to a (still black and white) extreme gorefest. The recreations of the experiments carried out by Unit 731 are brutal and horrific but it's ultimately the real stock footage that has the most impact. You can recreate death as many times and as accurately as you like but it fades into insignificance when compared with reality.
A major problem with the film is the acting of the victims. None of them struggle, scream, cry or show any emotion whatsoever as they are strapped onto operating tables and chairs, led out naked into the freezing snow or hooked up with electrodes and wires. In fact, the expression on one female victim, as her unborn baby is ripped piece by piece from her (all in the utmost graphic detail) seems to suggest that she's actually enjoying the experience. This happens a few times throughout the torture scenes and it completely undermines them.
Another problem is the amount of time that you stay with each victim/experiment. There is far more shock value in watching somebody having three or four teeth removed without anaesthetic than twenty of them. This kind of real life horror is far more effective when described with words and occasional flashes of gore, rather than lingering on every drop of blood spilt in extreme close up.
It's a gruelling experience and maybe that's what the director wanted - to have you sit through every uncomfortable, nauseating moment. But the problem there is every second you watch it is another second you realise it's just make-up effects and it lessens the very impact it's trying to make. Yet one thirty second sequence of real bodies piled up in a laboratory has a hundred times the desired effect.
It also doesn't help that most of the victims portrayed are westerners. Although hundreds of westerners were killed for sure within the facility, the vast majority of Maruta (another word for prisoners, which translates as "logs") were Chinese. One can only assume the reason for this was a combination of the Japanese pretending the occupation of China and the human experiments carried out in Harbin never actually happened, and the Chinese not wanting any part in such an exploitative film, no matter how well it wrapped itself up in it's documentary style, humanitarian message. Therefore most of the actors are Russian, and again, more impact is taken away.
As I've previously mentioned, every torture scene would have been more effective with less gore. However, of the experiments on display, the most noteworthy were the frostbite experiment (a man walked out naked into the snow, tied to a post and doused with boiling hot and then freezing cold water), the decompression chamber, radiation torture (watching someone's face slowly burn), phosphorous being placed on a man's face and ignited, burning, exploding and re-igniting constantly, the aforementioned foetus extraction (it may be badly acted but it's still brutal as hell) and plague infection (watching someone bleeding their liquefied internal organs from their rectum is never pretty). Also, the scene where an infected cockroach is forced inside a woman's (actual) vagina in close-up is highly uncomfortable viewing.
At absolutely no point can this film ever be called entertaining, although bizarrely, there is one scene near the end which is almost beautiful in it's execution. It still ends in an explosion of blood and brains but in a totally different way than anything before it. It's actually quite moving in it's own violent way.
This film, in my opinion anyway, should only be viewed how I went about it - as an educational aid on the history of war, death and inhumanity. There is no casual amusement to be had here. It is not fun. It is not entertainment, and it is not for the weak of stomach.
Very Poor
crustysaltmerchant15 July 2009
Warning: Spoilers
Having read all the reviews about the "Worlds most violent film" I thought I'd give it a watch. Now I'm not much of a gorehound these days but when I was younger I would actively seek out banned films etc. Having done a bit of research into both the film and the actual Unit 731 I knew I was in for an unpleasant experience, however nothing could prepare me for the mind-numbing dullness of possibly THE worst art-house piece of exploitation I was about to endure. The film was almost all in black and white, fine I have no problem with that but after the first 15 or so minutes it starts to look very tacky. The fake film scratches are repeated ad nauseum over four hours with no variations. The music is absolutely horrendous, mere words cannot describe how awful it is, at some points you'd gladly swap places with the people being tortured in the film as their ordeal would be a lot less painful! It's sound like Kraftwerk playing music composed by Ed Gein. Just awful repetitive beeps and electronic noises for four hours. The film itself is very badly made with what appears to be the same five or six people being used over and over and over again. By their very nature the experiments are horrific but are filmed in such an arty style and with such inept actors (they show very little or no emotion as they are being tortured to death)and in almost total silence apart from the music that you couldn't care less what was happening. A terrible voice over attempts to link each experiment but it, like the rest of the film, is incredibly dull and void of emotion. Some of the effects were very ropey indeed and with a more prudent editor he could've hidden a multitude of sins. Overall this film is far too long, far too arty and far too dull, a total missed opportunity to tell the world of what happened as many will be put off by the ridiculous style with which it is filmed.
Impressive and Disturbing....Very Disturbing
meode15 July 2008
I love Andrey Iskanov's other works such as Nails and Visions of Suffering and find Philosophy of a Knife along the same lines. While yes this movie is disturbing, graphic and based on real events I am amazed at the backlash the movie and Andrey have gotten.
Unlike other reviewers I knew what this movie was about going in. Yes there was a documentary aspect to it, part documentary and some historical footage which I thought helped connect the film as a whole, ramming it home even more that this was based on a true story. I am not sure what kind of movie others were expecting. Maybe they did not listen to the beginning interview or have not heard about Unit 731 before, or even seen Andrey's other works. I find the attack on actors and special effects ludicrous. How do you expect people to act in this scenario? Most of the special effects were very good in my opinion. There were some that could have been done better but that is the way it is and to me has no relevance to the movie as a whole. This movie was made in a certain style and is not your Hollywood pumped out generic horror crap or cookie cutter work. One reviewer even said it was a horrible movie because the actress had a Brazilian which apparently the character would not have at the time. Out of everything that is going on in that movie, the pain, cruelty, and deadening of humanity he focuses on that... I would go ahead and watch and listen to the quick interview at the beginning of the movie which answers all the questions other posters are missing. Yes it's not for everyone and for me its even hard to say I enjoyed it because it was very disturbing. My rant is over...
Unlike other reviewers I knew what this movie was about going in. Yes there was a documentary aspect to it, part documentary and some historical footage which I thought helped connect the film as a whole, ramming it home even more that this was based on a true story. I am not sure what kind of movie others were expecting. Maybe they did not listen to the beginning interview or have not heard about Unit 731 before, or even seen Andrey's other works. I find the attack on actors and special effects ludicrous. How do you expect people to act in this scenario? Most of the special effects were very good in my opinion. There were some that could have been done better but that is the way it is and to me has no relevance to the movie as a whole. This movie was made in a certain style and is not your Hollywood pumped out generic horror crap or cookie cutter work. One reviewer even said it was a horrible movie because the actress had a Brazilian which apparently the character would not have at the time. Out of everything that is going on in that movie, the pain, cruelty, and deadening of humanity he focuses on that... I would go ahead and watch and listen to the quick interview at the beginning of the movie which answers all the questions other posters are missing. Yes it's not for everyone and for me its even hard to say I enjoyed it because it was very disturbing. My rant is over...
Please, end, spare me.
c-conley905 November 2012
Warning: Spoilers
God, for me this has to be the worst, the worst in the world. And no, please don't tell me I'm overreacting here, it's bad, folks real bad. It's unwatchable, and its long and over 4 hours of torture scenes interspliced with horrible droning history lessons on Japanese Brutality during World War II on the Russians. That's all to this stupid movie, torture scene, torture scene, droning lecture, torture scene, droning lecture, weird freaky crap. Hostel had less torture scenes. Complete with horrible actors and actresses doing the torture scenes and the recreations and horrible looking fake gore. And it's all this really pretentious bullshit. Stay away, avoid like the plague, you won't get through it, I didn't I shut it off after two hours in. Please, watch anything else, anything else, don't even watch out of curioisity.
You Are There...
azathothpwiggins16 October 2018
PHILOSOPHY OF A KNIFE is not a horror / splatter / gore film. It is not meant to be enjoyed, or viewed as entertainment. It's not meant as pure exploitation, either. KNIFE is a documentary of sorts, by Director Andrey Iskanov, about the notorious UNIT 731 and the inhuman experiments conducted there during WW II.
The horrific, insanely extreme sequences are reenactments, much like in any other documentary. The difference being, of course, that Iskanov recreates the atrocities in as viciously realistic detail as possible. He intends for us to go along with these prisoners / test subjects for every excruciatingly long second of their hideous deaths. We are supposed to experience every bit of the terror, anguish, and torture of this mindless experimentation. All without hope of reprieve or possibility of escape. We are there for the deadening monotony of systematic mass murder.
This, as Iskanov drives home, is a slaughterhouse for human beings. He wants witnesses present for one of the darkest, most heart-destroying times in history. He makes a convincing case that man is capable of anything.
Anything.
One of the more chilling aspects of the film is the voice-over narration by Manoush, portraying a nurse at UNIT 731. Her words make it absolutely clear that in order to play a part in acts such as these, she had to forfeit her very soul.
This movie contains ultra-graphic scenes of human vivisection, mutilation, and other horrors that only a true sadistic psychopath could "enjoy". Rating this ten stars because I "love it" would be absurd and insane. No, the rating is high because it does exactly what it sets out to do. It takes us to this inconceivably terrible place, and makes us not only watch, but feel what is happening there. It does this in spite of its many flaws and budgetary constraints.
Not all stories have happy endings -or beginnings or middles- and exist simply because someone believed they had to be told...
The horrific, insanely extreme sequences are reenactments, much like in any other documentary. The difference being, of course, that Iskanov recreates the atrocities in as viciously realistic detail as possible. He intends for us to go along with these prisoners / test subjects for every excruciatingly long second of their hideous deaths. We are supposed to experience every bit of the terror, anguish, and torture of this mindless experimentation. All without hope of reprieve or possibility of escape. We are there for the deadening monotony of systematic mass murder.
This, as Iskanov drives home, is a slaughterhouse for human beings. He wants witnesses present for one of the darkest, most heart-destroying times in history. He makes a convincing case that man is capable of anything.
Anything.
One of the more chilling aspects of the film is the voice-over narration by Manoush, portraying a nurse at UNIT 731. Her words make it absolutely clear that in order to play a part in acts such as these, she had to forfeit her very soul.
This movie contains ultra-graphic scenes of human vivisection, mutilation, and other horrors that only a true sadistic psychopath could "enjoy". Rating this ten stars because I "love it" would be absurd and insane. No, the rating is high because it does exactly what it sets out to do. It takes us to this inconceivably terrible place, and makes us not only watch, but feel what is happening there. It does this in spite of its many flaws and budgetary constraints.
Not all stories have happy endings -or beginnings or middles- and exist simply because someone believed they had to be told...
Disturbing in parts, but overwhelmingly BORING! throughout.
deacon_blues-319 June 2010
Warning: Spoilers
OK, OK. So the Japanese did horrible experiments on Russians and Chinese during the pre- WW2 and WW2 era. But this film is a poor excuse for a documentary of that era. No actual footage of the experiments are extant, and all the re-creations in this film are very poorly done, especially for a 2008 film!
I really don't understand why this director (and I use the title very grudgingly!) bothered to make this film.
Most of this film is falling snow, actors staring melodramatically at each other and the camera, shots of hallways, and standard diagrams of medical instruments and surgical procedures. I suppose these scenes are some artsy attempt to build tension or an atmosphere of menace and despair; but they fail at all of these purposes miserably!
I fell asleep several times during the incessantly repeated long periods of symbolism and silent melodrama between the actual heinous acts of experimentation! The director seemed more intent on spending lots of time on repeating over and over his own symbolic expressionism and giving his few lousy actors plenty of camera exposure as they stare at one another and into the camera.
Close-ups of actors' eyes and faces, snow falling in blizzards outdoors, empty hallways, doorways, etc. ad nauseum!
What a colossal bore, and a narcissistic insult to the memory of the people to whom this film is supposedly dedicated!
One scene really puzzled me: the first atrocity that is dramatized in this film is the surgical removal of a Russian woman's unborn child. It reminded me very much of a modern abortion, which is legal in the US and most of Europe, except here the child is removed surgically instead of being poisoned in-utero and vacuumed out vaginally. The film seemed to make much of the body of the dead infant as it was removed and thrown into a specimen tray; this same heinous act against humanity is performed thousands of times legally every day in so-called "civilized" countries throughout the world. Other than the woman's consent, there is little difference between what the Japanese experimenters do and what modern-day abortionists do. So why should this scene even be worth inclusion?
The special effects are very phony and done with lots of putty, latex, and camera tricks that are about as new as Orson Welles and Citizen Kane.
A very poorly done effort at film-making in general, and a narcissistic slight against the memory of the people victimized.
What a snore!
I really don't understand why this director (and I use the title very grudgingly!) bothered to make this film.
Most of this film is falling snow, actors staring melodramatically at each other and the camera, shots of hallways, and standard diagrams of medical instruments and surgical procedures. I suppose these scenes are some artsy attempt to build tension or an atmosphere of menace and despair; but they fail at all of these purposes miserably!
I fell asleep several times during the incessantly repeated long periods of symbolism and silent melodrama between the actual heinous acts of experimentation! The director seemed more intent on spending lots of time on repeating over and over his own symbolic expressionism and giving his few lousy actors plenty of camera exposure as they stare at one another and into the camera.
Close-ups of actors' eyes and faces, snow falling in blizzards outdoors, empty hallways, doorways, etc. ad nauseum!
What a colossal bore, and a narcissistic insult to the memory of the people to whom this film is supposedly dedicated!
One scene really puzzled me: the first atrocity that is dramatized in this film is the surgical removal of a Russian woman's unborn child. It reminded me very much of a modern abortion, which is legal in the US and most of Europe, except here the child is removed surgically instead of being poisoned in-utero and vacuumed out vaginally. The film seemed to make much of the body of the dead infant as it was removed and thrown into a specimen tray; this same heinous act against humanity is performed thousands of times legally every day in so-called "civilized" countries throughout the world. Other than the woman's consent, there is little difference between what the Japanese experimenters do and what modern-day abortionists do. So why should this scene even be worth inclusion?
The special effects are very phony and done with lots of putty, latex, and camera tricks that are about as new as Orson Welles and Citizen Kane.
A very poorly done effort at film-making in general, and a narcissistic slight against the memory of the people victimized.
What a snore!
Back To The Origin...
Arirang200927 June 2010
Warning: Spoilers
As i am a gore hound, i almost died when i heard about this movie - and i was thinking; "Yes, finally something unusual to be showed", after being a bit tired of all these 2000's so called "splatter/gore" movies, with men in slaughter masks and a poor, women, screaming for help...
First of all to start with; this movie was suppose to be a documentary. To be a documentary-movie, i feel it has to follow some certain rules, in order to be a documentary. If it was the purpose for this movie to be a documentary, it did fail, A LOT. I've read a lot about Unit 731, and i think mostly folks, who did the same can agree that it was more Chinese/Koreans and crime, and locals who became victims for Unit 731, and only a few percentages of other none-Asian folks, like Russians, Americans and Europeans. In this movie we saw only Russians or western folks being killed.
Secondly, it was also children, small as age of 3 years old kids where reported, but it maybe had been too much to show how-to-torture-a-kid, but the fact that the Unit 731 flick "Men Behind The Sun", directed by Tun Fei Mou, actually did showed us at least two kids being killed in his movie. If this movie, Philosophy of a Knife, where suppose to be a documentary, they should have shown some kids as well, because of that matter it actually happened.
3th. I don't know what about all these girls who where killed in this movie; but it just felt strange - they looked like being taken from nearest Play-Boy center. After seeing real pictures from the incident, i can sure you, that the victims of Unit 731, was far away so "perfect" as these actress where. But as a experienced gore-movie fan, i can say; "to make a gore-movie more brutal, they often uses women in their flicks."
4th. It was just too much blood and guts. Whatever they did in this movie, the blood was just flushing out from the body; and if it didn't, they tried to make up for it by showing us how to boil a decapitated head or cut some dead bodies up in the crematorium. I know most of what happened inside these walls was very bloody, but even they knew about the risk for contamination or being infected by the test subject. It's hardly to believe that they let blood flushing out on the whole room, when their subject have been injected with various of very deadly germs...
5th. The music was pretty OK, not those bomb-explosions to sound effect, but the rest was just... crap. Many folks compare this to Men Behind The Sun, and they have not obviously read anything about Unit 731, Tun Fei Mou succeeded to get more realistic in his movie, even tho that movie was more a movie rater than a documentary. In that movie, everything was correct "balanced" between gore, actually happenings and the amount of foreign folks being killed.
6th. Impressions. Here's what this movie really fails. When i saw a mother, with her kid and desperately trying to cover her boy's mouth in order to keep him alive and seeing her fear in her eyes, being killed by poisoned gas (Men Behind The Sun), i felt very compassion with the character, and i got the feeling how terrible it must to became a test subject without any worth. A very similar thing was also brought into Philosophy of a Knife, however, as for all other scenes, blood and flesh just poring out from his face.
7th. Comparison. While Philosophy of a Knife just out for blood, women (oh well, some few boys as well), and gore, this was just a four hour long freak show in how-to-mess-up-a-human-body, included with falling snow that almost made you snow-blind, and with some very strange sexual contents between all these gore. The scene in the pressure chamber was just too ridiculous. Men Behind The Sun is a raw footage of what really did happened inside Unit 731's walls. Tun Fei Mou dare to show how folks (actress) really looked like when they where brought into the Buildings Of death. Even if that movie maybe not had so much gore, it had a more meaningful story, plot and a point that director Tun wanted to show us.
8th. Last words. As a gore movie it worked pretty good however, but saying that these was actually happenings it's maybe too much. Being a documentary, i can say that this was some kind of Russian propaganda, due to the numbers of Russians being killed in this flick. Plot-holes, since much of the torture scene completely missing it's point (why do you skin a young womens face off, and then putting a new one on her for a photography?) Very bad documentary, pretty OK gore-movie, if you can stand with four hours of amateur effects and snow falling.
First of all to start with; this movie was suppose to be a documentary. To be a documentary-movie, i feel it has to follow some certain rules, in order to be a documentary. If it was the purpose for this movie to be a documentary, it did fail, A LOT. I've read a lot about Unit 731, and i think mostly folks, who did the same can agree that it was more Chinese/Koreans and crime, and locals who became victims for Unit 731, and only a few percentages of other none-Asian folks, like Russians, Americans and Europeans. In this movie we saw only Russians or western folks being killed.
Secondly, it was also children, small as age of 3 years old kids where reported, but it maybe had been too much to show how-to-torture-a-kid, but the fact that the Unit 731 flick "Men Behind The Sun", directed by Tun Fei Mou, actually did showed us at least two kids being killed in his movie. If this movie, Philosophy of a Knife, where suppose to be a documentary, they should have shown some kids as well, because of that matter it actually happened.
3th. I don't know what about all these girls who where killed in this movie; but it just felt strange - they looked like being taken from nearest Play-Boy center. After seeing real pictures from the incident, i can sure you, that the victims of Unit 731, was far away so "perfect" as these actress where. But as a experienced gore-movie fan, i can say; "to make a gore-movie more brutal, they often uses women in their flicks."
4th. It was just too much blood and guts. Whatever they did in this movie, the blood was just flushing out from the body; and if it didn't, they tried to make up for it by showing us how to boil a decapitated head or cut some dead bodies up in the crematorium. I know most of what happened inside these walls was very bloody, but even they knew about the risk for contamination or being infected by the test subject. It's hardly to believe that they let blood flushing out on the whole room, when their subject have been injected with various of very deadly germs...
5th. The music was pretty OK, not those bomb-explosions to sound effect, but the rest was just... crap. Many folks compare this to Men Behind The Sun, and they have not obviously read anything about Unit 731, Tun Fei Mou succeeded to get more realistic in his movie, even tho that movie was more a movie rater than a documentary. In that movie, everything was correct "balanced" between gore, actually happenings and the amount of foreign folks being killed.
6th. Impressions. Here's what this movie really fails. When i saw a mother, with her kid and desperately trying to cover her boy's mouth in order to keep him alive and seeing her fear in her eyes, being killed by poisoned gas (Men Behind The Sun), i felt very compassion with the character, and i got the feeling how terrible it must to became a test subject without any worth. A very similar thing was also brought into Philosophy of a Knife, however, as for all other scenes, blood and flesh just poring out from his face.
7th. Comparison. While Philosophy of a Knife just out for blood, women (oh well, some few boys as well), and gore, this was just a four hour long freak show in how-to-mess-up-a-human-body, included with falling snow that almost made you snow-blind, and with some very strange sexual contents between all these gore. The scene in the pressure chamber was just too ridiculous. Men Behind The Sun is a raw footage of what really did happened inside Unit 731's walls. Tun Fei Mou dare to show how folks (actress) really looked like when they where brought into the Buildings Of death. Even if that movie maybe not had so much gore, it had a more meaningful story, plot and a point that director Tun wanted to show us.
8th. Last words. As a gore movie it worked pretty good however, but saying that these was actually happenings it's maybe too much. Being a documentary, i can say that this was some kind of Russian propaganda, due to the numbers of Russians being killed in this flick. Plot-holes, since much of the torture scene completely missing it's point (why do you skin a young womens face off, and then putting a new one on her for a photography?) Very bad documentary, pretty OK gore-movie, if you can stand with four hours of amateur effects and snow falling.
Tedious and Amateur filmmaking of the lowest quality...
droc-228 April 2012
This piece of trash is the aborted fetus, the result of a pairing between Andy Warhols Empire having back alley sex with the Trustinus film Nightmare Asylum. If movies suffered from birth defects, this one would be suffering from Downs Syndrome and Quadriplegia.
This movie tries to accomplish many things... it fails at all of them. The entire thing comes off as a first year film student project by a student who should have been taking special education classes instead of film making.
It tries to be informative, proclaiming itself to be part documentary. But in the 4+ hours of running time, there is nothing you won't learn that you wouldn't get from spending 5 minutes on Wikipedia. The archival footage that is used is sparse, and the actual relevant bits of archival footage take up less than one minute of the 4 hours of running time. The "re-enactments" that make up the most "shocking" moments of the film are horribly acted, terribly shot, and ridiculously long paced. The "actors" used to portray the prisoners are all healthy and attractive looking Caucasians, all 7 of them. The movie (I refuse to call this a film) shows you all seven "prisoners" in the beginning, and as it it counts down each prisoners death we are often shown the others sitting in their cell, no looking frightened, or sickly, or even malnourished, but just plain bored. When the "experiment re-enactments" are shown, every actor involved looks like they are sleep walking through the scene... They put up no resistance, the lie there almost sedately as teeth are pulled, internal organs are ripped from their vagina's, they are burned alive, etc... The entire time they are being tortured these victims show all the emotion of a wooden plank ordering coffee.
It also claims to be a horror film, but it fails that horribly as well. For horror to work, you have to have an emotional attachment, and there is none to be found here for anyone. You don't feel anything for the victims, who just sit around looking like they are waiting for a bus until they meet their fates. You don't feel any resentment towards the "doctors" who look just as bored with their work. The only person with any on-screen dialog is the old Russian guy, the only person interviewed in the movie, Anatoly Protasov. The movie claims he is a former doctor and a translator who lived within a stones throw of the camp. He comes off as a sympathizer to the doctors. And the it is claimed he was an eye-witness to the events, it becomes clear from his own interview that he witnessed nothing. In each interview he seems on the verge of jerking off when talking about Unit 731.
What the movie tries to be more than anything else, is torture porn, of the most obvious and deliberate variety, but it can't even get that right. The effects are horrible, worse than any 90's 20 dollar "shot on a camcorder" film.The shots of people who have supposedly been skinned alive, the musculature under the flesh, looks like heaps of modeling clay.
Regardless, the gore would have failed even if it were done by experts, as it is edited so horribly, that any effect it would have on you other than than boredom is lost. This movie is the equivalent of porn focused on nothing but long drawn out scenes of a semi flaccid penis going into spoiled grapefruit interspersed with 4 minutes scenes of falling snow. There is more to get excited over watching a 12 hour long bingo game where no one wins, than there is in this movie.
There is nothing redeemable, nothing shocking, nothing entertaining, nothing informative, and nothing shocking about this movie... Anytime it comes close to having even a moment of those things, the horrible editing, abysmal pacing, and absolute lowest caliber of directing and acting ruin it completely. The only thing this movie accomplishes, is being the single most boring and self indulgent piece of trash I have ever watched.
The only people who will find this movie worth watching are mentally handicapped reprobates, and I am positive the only reason it was filmed was to give the director something to masturbate to.
Avoid unless you really want to waste your time in the most boring and tedious manner possible.
This movie tries to accomplish many things... it fails at all of them. The entire thing comes off as a first year film student project by a student who should have been taking special education classes instead of film making.
It tries to be informative, proclaiming itself to be part documentary. But in the 4+ hours of running time, there is nothing you won't learn that you wouldn't get from spending 5 minutes on Wikipedia. The archival footage that is used is sparse, and the actual relevant bits of archival footage take up less than one minute of the 4 hours of running time. The "re-enactments" that make up the most "shocking" moments of the film are horribly acted, terribly shot, and ridiculously long paced. The "actors" used to portray the prisoners are all healthy and attractive looking Caucasians, all 7 of them. The movie (I refuse to call this a film) shows you all seven "prisoners" in the beginning, and as it it counts down each prisoners death we are often shown the others sitting in their cell, no looking frightened, or sickly, or even malnourished, but just plain bored. When the "experiment re-enactments" are shown, every actor involved looks like they are sleep walking through the scene... They put up no resistance, the lie there almost sedately as teeth are pulled, internal organs are ripped from their vagina's, they are burned alive, etc... The entire time they are being tortured these victims show all the emotion of a wooden plank ordering coffee.
It also claims to be a horror film, but it fails that horribly as well. For horror to work, you have to have an emotional attachment, and there is none to be found here for anyone. You don't feel anything for the victims, who just sit around looking like they are waiting for a bus until they meet their fates. You don't feel any resentment towards the "doctors" who look just as bored with their work. The only person with any on-screen dialog is the old Russian guy, the only person interviewed in the movie, Anatoly Protasov. The movie claims he is a former doctor and a translator who lived within a stones throw of the camp. He comes off as a sympathizer to the doctors. And the it is claimed he was an eye-witness to the events, it becomes clear from his own interview that he witnessed nothing. In each interview he seems on the verge of jerking off when talking about Unit 731.
What the movie tries to be more than anything else, is torture porn, of the most obvious and deliberate variety, but it can't even get that right. The effects are horrible, worse than any 90's 20 dollar "shot on a camcorder" film.The shots of people who have supposedly been skinned alive, the musculature under the flesh, looks like heaps of modeling clay.
Regardless, the gore would have failed even if it were done by experts, as it is edited so horribly, that any effect it would have on you other than than boredom is lost. This movie is the equivalent of porn focused on nothing but long drawn out scenes of a semi flaccid penis going into spoiled grapefruit interspersed with 4 minutes scenes of falling snow. There is more to get excited over watching a 12 hour long bingo game where no one wins, than there is in this movie.
There is nothing redeemable, nothing shocking, nothing entertaining, nothing informative, and nothing shocking about this movie... Anytime it comes close to having even a moment of those things, the horrible editing, abysmal pacing, and absolute lowest caliber of directing and acting ruin it completely. The only thing this movie accomplishes, is being the single most boring and self indulgent piece of trash I have ever watched.
The only people who will find this movie worth watching are mentally handicapped reprobates, and I am positive the only reason it was filmed was to give the director something to masturbate to.
Avoid unless you really want to waste your time in the most boring and tedious manner possible.
thank you to the last reviewer
natoriousg7 March 2009
The past reviewer was spot on, so much unnecessary footage. If you're going to pretend that this is an honest interpretation of what actually happened then keep the ratio of snow-white-perfectly-proportioned-westerner victims in check compared to the normal domestic test subjects who were vastly underrepresented in this picture. They claim that they weren't trying to demonize the Japanese in that incredibly pretentious let-me-tell-you-how-to-interpret-this-movie segment at the beginning, but It sure seemed like the majority of horrors of war were apportioned to one side. War is dirty, war is nasty, war is savage. The Japanese did many evil things, and had many evil things done to them by Westerners, a little balance would be nice.
Everyone else has pretty much covered all the bases
KillBill566920 July 2010
Warning: Spoilers
I found this movie on Netflix. All I was told in the synopsis of the movie was that it was based on true events and was half movie and half documentary about biological and chemical warfare being developed/tested in a place called Unit 731. I didn't even know when I started watching it that it was 2 parts (4 hours)long until I got to the last scene of part 1 which is of a naked woman strapped down with her legs spread wide open and a creepy sicko doctor inserting a cockroach into her vagina! That was the end for me, I won't be moving on to part 2. If you like your movies sick and twisted, watch it, otherwise I'd advise you to find something else. And if you're curious about the events at Unit 731 do some internet searches and learn about it that way. Everything else has been said about this movie so there's no more reason to go on about it.
Unwatchable
kabukiindustries13 November 2018
Violently intense Gore-mentary for the insane
heneverdies18 October 2007
Warning: Spoilers
This is the 1st Gore-mentary ever made. Clocking in at 4 hours with little left to the imagination. Philosophy of a Knife pulls no punches and will leave you breathless. Since it is a gore-mentary, it takes you on a journey into the bowels of Unit 731, from it's humble beginnings before World War 2 to it's over the top chemical and biological experiments and then to it's subsequent trials and destruction of the actual camp. Nothing is left to the imagination as each and ever experiment is showcased and thrown in front of you eyes for your dissection and synaptic backfire. Highlights of the death and torture, almost too many to count but here's a few... The subsequent freezing and skinning alive of a soldier, the soon to be famous dental scene where every tooth is extracted from a poor woman's mouth, the cesarean scene where they rip a woman in half to get at a small fetus inside, The radiation experiments, the chemical experiments, the sexually transmittable diseases experiments... I can go on and on so you get the point. Every single experiment has been replicated in the film, one of the reasons for it being 4 hours long. Shot in B&W so it's easy to meld both archival footage and newly shot footage for one of the creepiest feels in cinematic history. It has an intense industrial soundtrack that gives it that smack in the head feeling.
This isn't your average film or documentary, it's broken into two, 2 hours each and it will take you 2 days to watch cause once you start watching, you will need a breather from the viciously intense gore scenes that Iskanov delivers, non-stop. I figure, after this comes out, the Gore-mentary is born and will become a new addition to an already oversaturated genre where nothing is new but this is the 1st! What else can I say, this film has so many computer effect scenes BUT you never notice most of them at all! I mean, the cgi effects are probably the best i've seen in an independent film. Non of the gore effects are done by cgi but the background, that's the kicker and that's what everyone was screaming for so Unearthed Films and Andrey Iskanov does what the gore hounds have been asking for. When this baby comes out, I don't know what everyone will think but it will be fun to hear who can watch it and who won't!
This isn't your average film or documentary, it's broken into two, 2 hours each and it will take you 2 days to watch cause once you start watching, you will need a breather from the viciously intense gore scenes that Iskanov delivers, non-stop. I figure, after this comes out, the Gore-mentary is born and will become a new addition to an already oversaturated genre where nothing is new but this is the 1st! What else can I say, this film has so many computer effect scenes BUT you never notice most of them at all! I mean, the cgi effects are probably the best i've seen in an independent film. Non of the gore effects are done by cgi but the background, that's the kicker and that's what everyone was screaming for so Unearthed Films and Andrey Iskanov does what the gore hounds have been asking for. When this baby comes out, I don't know what everyone will think but it will be fun to hear who can watch it and who won't!
More a gore festival than anything informative
arturmachado-2958820 April 2016
Andrey Iskanov is a Russian film-maker that as made a name for himself with a few really graphic movies and this one is just over the top (or below the bottom, as your preferences go).
This movie is a documentary about the true story of the Japanese Military Unit 731 that from 1930 to 1945 committed medical and scientific atrocities on human beings, very similar to the nazi experiments. But Iskanov, a sensationalist and shocker, gives us a movie that is more a gore festival than anything informative. I didn't like this; even being a fan of the horror genre, I had to skip/fast-forward many parts. Maybe I'm getting soft...
For those interested in learning more about Unit 731, I'm pretty sure there are serious and true documentaries out there without having to suffer the torture of the analytical visualization of the atrocities. But if you want to be shocked and horrified, this is the movie.
This movie is a documentary about the true story of the Japanese Military Unit 731 that from 1930 to 1945 committed medical and scientific atrocities on human beings, very similar to the nazi experiments. But Iskanov, a sensationalist and shocker, gives us a movie that is more a gore festival than anything informative. I didn't like this; even being a fan of the horror genre, I had to skip/fast-forward many parts. Maybe I'm getting soft...
For those interested in learning more about Unit 731, I'm pretty sure there are serious and true documentaries out there without having to suffer the torture of the analytical visualization of the atrocities. But if you want to be shocked and horrified, this is the movie.
What A Piece Of Garbage
Adam_venedam27 August 2011
Warning: Spoilers
STAY AWAY FROM THIS FILM! What can I say, there are so many things wrong with it, for starters its 4.5 hours long, half of it maybe even more is completely pointless just boring shots of different angles with no talking Sound effects, I don't care what they use but my god THEY USED THE SAME SOUND EFFECT OVER AND OVER again for when bodies were flopped around and when people jumped and landed, it was the same sound over and over again and it was a sound that I used for cheap homemade films almost a decade ago, trust me this makes the experience feel so cheap.
The narration, the narration was extremely annoying because about half of what the narrator was saying I couldn't understand or hear, either because the music background and repeated sound effects were too loud or his voice was just too low at times, the quality of the narration changes randomly too which also makes it even harder to hear.
Im pretty sure that a lot of the torture they showed in this film wasn't true, like making the prisoners have sex with each other? or the cockroach thing that was retarded.
The ONLY thing that makes this film good is the very convincing experiments they were well done and looked very real. But thats the problem Im not looking to watch disgusting things when everything else is pure garbage, I wanted to watch a good doc that explained very well the history of what happened, they might of explained it but still all the things that are wrong with this film make it to crappy and poor to even pay attention.
The narration, the narration was extremely annoying because about half of what the narrator was saying I couldn't understand or hear, either because the music background and repeated sound effects were too loud or his voice was just too low at times, the quality of the narration changes randomly too which also makes it even harder to hear.
Im pretty sure that a lot of the torture they showed in this film wasn't true, like making the prisoners have sex with each other? or the cockroach thing that was retarded.
The ONLY thing that makes this film good is the very convincing experiments they were well done and looked very real. But thats the problem Im not looking to watch disgusting things when everything else is pure garbage, I wanted to watch a good doc that explained very well the history of what happened, they might of explained it but still all the things that are wrong with this film make it to crappy and poor to even pay attention.
Waste of Time.
john-198-60075929 October 2011
This film is a total waste of time. The director is more worried about showing off what he learned in film school than telling a story. This movie is full of long drawn out scenes that really have no bearing on the story that are trying to impart. This director has no understanding on how to edit a film. He allows one of the "witnesses" he interviews to ramble on about things that did not matter and to repeat himself multiple times. As you watch it you get the feeling that the makers of this film are going for shock value and nothing else. They show "doctors" performing surgery on people with with blood sprayed everywhere and the staff walking around with it on them. It is all smoke and mirrors and not substance. A 30 minute film stretched into 4 hours.
You might as well watch the Saw movies, because they are exactly the same except the don't make any pretenses about being factual. They also get to the point and don't beat around the bush for 4 hours.
You might as well watch the Saw movies, because they are exactly the same except the don't make any pretenses about being factual. They also get to the point and don't beat around the bush for 4 hours.
Terrible
NickGagnon9425 March 2022
Seems like half of the people who saw this film sees it as a disturbing masterpiece and the other half sees is as a horrible waste of time. Im one who sees this as a waste. The film runs for 4 and a half hours! I admit I did forward parts of the film. Its mostly scenes of extreme torture. Its about the history of Unit 731 and the Chinese prisoners of war that were experimented on. Its just pure exploitation at its worst.
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