All I know of Unit 731 is from reading the wiki page, but that gave me a good understanding of what was done and why. This film provides a thin story following some of the key characters in the real events, and is obviously structured to reveal some of the experiments done at that time. However, the story itself doesn't leave you sympathetic to the characters much - perhaps that is intentional, as the Japanese who did this weren't meant to be sympathized with from the director's view perhaps. I am a gore fan, and I was looking for more historical insight than the wiki provided. With this film we have to start by accepting it was made in 1988, in a time and place without much special effects and still following a lot of Shaw Brother kung fu theater type films. So the quality is 'dated' to be kind. I appreciate the director's intent and attempt, but in this day and age it falls short. The gore is more than most of it's time, but simply looks cheesy 1980's now. The historical aspects appear true enough, but 20 minutes reading the wiki page will give you a LOT more. So I ended up feeling short on gore and history by the film. Had I seen it within a few years of it being made, I may have a different take. Seeing it now, 'meh' not worth your time, tbh.

Let me first start this review by saying that "Men behind the sun" is one of the most unique amalgamations of genres, in this case that of a war movie and an exploitation movie. Just think of what happens when you cross "Salo, or the I20 days of Sodom" with the "The Great Escape" and you would hit the right ballpark. "MBTS", however, has a significant degree of difference from other exploitationers like "Ilsa" or even "I spit on your grave" and this is where the sickening strength of the film truly lies. Unlike those said movies, "MBTS" is based on real events, and the movie follows these events down to the bitter and tragic end. (With minor plot additions of course)The plot of "MBTS" follows the exploits of almost everybody involved in the Manchu-based Japanese Unit 731, the medical unit responsible for carrying out the bulk of the biological experiments via unspeakably misanthropic ways. The specimens in these experiments were not frogs or rats or even your usual guinea pigs, rather it involved real live humans and included (but not limited to) captured soldiers, domesticated animals, and even children. What makes the movie even better is that it adheres to these facts with much reverence. Mous and company, even with the lack of actual evidence, manage to recreate the gruesome set-pieces through the several eyewitness accounts. Thematically and graphically, the movie never fails. One thing that makes this particular movie stand out is the fact that it never falters from showing unspeakable acts. If one has read from the interviews of T.F Mou, the crew stopped at nothing to show the atrocities done by the Japanese, going as far as using a real corpse of a boy during the murder-autopsy scene. Such audacity went along way indeed, with the ending showing a Chinese boy, who is about to escape from the camp, getting a Japanese flag rammed through his neck. (What a subtle effort in showing cinematic symbolism)What makes MBTS even more disturbing is its efforts to achieve a linear narrative form, or in other words its effort to become more of a movie and less of a documentary. So what's the deal with that? In normal, narrative movies, the audiences are always expecting the hero to save the day, to serve the each antagonist their share of comeuppance. In this film, that never happens. The hero-villain relationship does not exist in this movie. What we have here is an Oppressor-Victim relationship. The people in the movie that manage to gain our sympathy are disemboweled, skinned alive, impaled, explode their guts etc. I must make clear that if it were a documentary, it would have been less disturbing for ME, but to see it in colored celluloid and with it trying to pass of as just another HK movie makes my blood run cold. These were real atrocities, and now we get to see them literally in the flesh.Overall, I must honestly say that MBTS surprisingly sickened me, and this is coming from a guy who has watched Baise-Moi, Ken Park, Inside, Untold Story, Ichi the Killer, Visitor Q, Poultrygeist, and A Serbian FILM. Not that those films didn't shock me, it's just that I have discovered that every extreme-film has its own unique way of twisting you. It might be a subtle attack on your violent impulses (a la Haneke's Funny Games) or something more unexpected (I really didn't anticipate the level of bloody brutality of INSIDE). With MBTS, it was a bit different. Here, I was already informed beforehand of the individual "stand-out" scenes. It turned out to be, informed or not, I was still sickened. It turned out to be that in the anticipating such scenes to happen, I could see the Chinese people in the film, innocent, unmindful, helpless, like lambs to be led to the slaughter. There could nothing be more disturbing than watching a Chinese kid in the movie happily playing not knowing that in the next scene he will be killed and systematically disemboweled.I know people will watch this for its gore content. It will suffice, but of course there will always be gorier films that this one. One thing I will say that is for sure is that if you're looking for a more intense and bleaker version of sugar-coated films like Schindler's list, this is the right movie for you. In the end, you'll feel so empty; you swear that your guts have been blown out of you via decompression chamber.In the end, it was an amazingly disturbing experience but it warrants a viewing thanks to its honest portrayal.

This film sucked, boring and didn't scare me at all, don't go into this film as a movie that will scare you, if anything its just a historical film about the secret 731 experiments.The film was boring as hell and some of the torture scenes were so cheesy when the girl gets her frozen hands ripped off and shes screaming is just so stupid, there were a couple scenes that will forever be embedded into my head for ever that were the most disgusting things I've ever seen in my life, the compression chamber scene looked real, maybe it was real, the scene where they do the autopsy on that living breathing boy to take his organs was real for sure I know that because it was autopsy footage that was the most disgusting things I've ever seen it make me squirm. the cat scene was just retarded to, I don't get how everyone thinks its real, they just cut the camera and kept putting some sort of red sauce on the cat so the rats would lick it off the cat, its not violent at all.Other than it having a couple of real looking torture scenes and it being a good history lesson thats all its good for, its not good for entertainment or anything, its interesting to see how it happened but thats it.The only reason I rate it so low is not only because it was boring but is because of editing reasons to

If you think what the Nazi's did to Jews was some terrible stuff. That has nothing on what the japs did to other Asians, the true and horrifying things they did is terrible to the point it's unforgivable. This film doesn't try to bash on modern japan, but accurately portrays the war crimes they have committed. Some criticize this of being a exploitation film, I have no idea why since it accurately shows the experiments the japs did to other human being during WW2. The japs went bonkers when this film first came out and some still do, which is just idiotic since they are throwing a hissy fit for showing the truth. People are literally treated worse than animals in this and it's very graphic, also painful to watch. Yeah it does have animal cruelty in this which led some viewers to throw a hissy fit. I wonder why, since nobody cares when they see human being getting killed on screen, even when it's real. But when it comes to animals it's like a whole another story for them. Anyways this is a difficult film to watch all the way through since it really is genuinely disturbing, so watch with caution.7.3/10