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The true history of Japanese Unit 731, from its beginnings in the 1930's to its demise in 1945, and the subsequent trials in Khabarovsk, USSR, of many of the Japanese doctors from Unit 731. The facts are told, and previously unknown evidence is revealed by an eyewitness to these events, former doctor and military translator, Anatoly Protasov.
Part documentary and part feature, the story is shown from the perspective of a young Japanese nurse who witnessed many of horrors, and a young Japanese officer who is torn between his sincere convictions that he is serving the greater purpose, and the deep sympathy he feels for an imprisoned Russian girl.
His life is a living hell as he's compelled to carry out atrocious experiments on the other prisoners, using them as guinea pigs in this shocking tale of mankind's barbarity. Philosophy of a Knife is truly one of the most violent, brutal and harrowing movies ever made.
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Well now that I've watched it, I can comfortably say that the negative review posted by DC is completely full of shit.
First of all, this movie is not meant for casual viewing. It is long (little bit longer than 4 hours) movie so you need to be willing to dedicate the time to watch this. It is split up to two parts but it is much better if you watch it from beginning to end. This is also not a fast paced movie, it takes its time to tell the story and showing the events, so yes the scenes maybe overtly long (especially if you have not seen an Andrey Iskanov movie before) but it is done for a good reason and works effectively at making the audience feel uneasy. The reason of the length though is that this movie goes beyond Unit 731, it takes about everything that led up to the event of Japan invading China, why Unit 731 was created, the deals between the Japanese government and the USSR. Aswell as everything that happened after the US went into Japan and what happened to those involved with that section of the Japanese military.
I do however find it hard to classify this movie into a genre. Yes it is a documentary designed to show what happened with the Japanese military group Unit 731, (or more specifically, what has been declassified and approved to be shown as certain governments are still very hush-hush about releasing information) which intercuts scenes of recreations with interview footage of a man who was there from the start of the events till the very end, aswell as real war footage and pictures. Though it is very much an art-house movie too, while the movie and the scenes are based on factual events the reenactments are created using the artists' interpretation of those events(which is made clear in the introduction of the movie).
Such as the frostbite experiments. After they bring in the prisoner from outside after being left in the cold and having water poured on his arms and feet then dipped in hot water. The soldiers stand him up and make various incisions on the frostbitten parts of the body and forced the man to walk. Then we get to slowly watch his skin fall apart exposing only the bones until, naturally the bones in his legs snap and he collapses. Obviously it wasn't done this way and I can't imagen the prisoner being able to walk but this is what is meant by interpretation. There are various other examples such as seeing a disease infected roach traveling from a woman's vagina to out her mouth, etc.
With bringing those scenes up. Does this movie have the best and most realistic special effects? No. While the effects for the most part are very well done (such as the pressure chamber scene or the skin removal from a skull scene) it does have it's weak moments (the chopping up of the bodies for cremation, the woman having the skin removed from her back) but it doesn't ever take away from the movie or make what your seeing any less grotesque. Since the experiment that you are watching take place at one point did actually happen to a real person.
The acting is done well, not the best I've seen but very far from the worst. There is no dialogue in the movie, the only time anyone speaks is either from the male narrator, narration from the female nurse recalling the events (and her descriptions at times were just as nasty as the scenes themselves) or the man being interviewed. Everything else is done simply through actions and facial expressions, such as we see the infatuation one of the male soldiers has towards a female Russian prisoners or the nurse being unable to handle watching the people being tortured. Then to comment about the look of the prisoners, yes before they have experiments done on them they don't look anything like the malnourished, half-dead people we see photos of from concentration camps. As Andrey himself pointed out, these people were not just prisoners they were test subjects. It would have been impossible to conduct quality research on these people if they were unhealthy and on the verge of death. They needed these people to be as well taken care of as possible so they could understand the full effect of the diseases and understanding of the human bodies reaction to certain situations (cold, pressure, etc.).
A unique movie to say the least and an important one that I think should be seen, but everyone should understand what they are going to be getting into with the movie and not so much the hype of being one of the sickest movies. I know the fact that it's long and slow and being in an art-house style is going to turn off alot of people but its still a very well done and executed movie that's worth watching.
Inevitably a comparison is going to be made between this and Men Behind the Sun. Would I say this is better than MBTS? Yes, only because I don't like that movie but it is not a fair comparison. While both deal with the same subject matter, both are two very different movies and I think if you are going to watch one movie then you should watch the other aswell. Then of course the big question at hand. Is this movie one of the sickest ones around and as nasty as everyone claims it as? Don't know. How sick and how nasty this movie is really all depends on each persons viewing. Some may not find it as sick because of the artistic approach used, others might not even be able to watch it after the first experiment. In the end though, it is rather a disturbing movie just simply because real people had to endure these horrible and vile experiments.
The last line of the movie really best describes the purpose and reasoning behind Philosophy of a Knife and why we should remember and not just sweep it under the rug and forget about it because it happened "6 decades ago."
"To remember those who were sacrificed for the beliefs of others."