Dam... just Dam

[eyez0nme]

*link removed*

Alot harder to watch than that dumb guy blowing up.

[Zonehunter1]

I was hoping to see a picture of a dam.....
should this belong somewhere else?
And why post another thing like it when your first one was closed??
It's beyond words...

[eyez0nme]

Watching 'Men Behind The Sun' is a very odd experience, because it's difficult to tell what exactly it is trying to achieve. On the surface it is presented as a supposedly serious expose of some of the little known war crimes committed by the Japanese in WW2. But it is made in such a trashy way (compounded by the badly dubbed copy I watched) that it comes across closer to an 'Ilsa, She-Wolf Of The SS' exploitation movie, minus the sex.

The reason this movie is so notorious is mainly because of a handful of scenes. One sequence, the frostbite experiment, is shocking, but obviously special effects, so gorehounds will treat it like a Romero or Fulci gore scene. However, two others, the autopsy scene, and the decompression chamber scene, appear to use real corpses. These are gruesome but strangely fascinating. What really pushes this movie over the edge though are the two scenes which involve animal abuse. One is very short but involves a horde of fleeing rats being burned alive. This scene is obviously real. The other is the notorious segment which involves a cat being eaten alive by rats. This appears to be real, and if it is, it's the most reprehensible thing I've ever seen in a movie. If it is faked it is one of the most convincing special effects I've ever watched, and even so, the cat is obviously highly distressed.

I must admit I still don't know what to think about this movie. If the film makers genuinely intended this to be a serious look at Japanese atrocities I would applaud it for bringing to attention a disgusting series of events that should not be forgotten. However, as I am dubious about their sincerity, I remain nonplussed. I can't really get all high and mighty about it, because after all I did watch the thing, and therefore I would feel like a hypocrite for having done so. All I can say is that if you want to see an extreme piece of film making and are not easily disturbed, 'Men Behind The Sun' is truly unforgettable.

[Zonehunter1]

You don't pay attention real well do you?

[eyez0nme]

Because it was a Japanese who made that film about Japan

[renegade]

You don't pay attention real well do you?
hehe its like he is in his own world
dont shack him or he might pop

[Zonehunter1]

Then why is it in General Discussion?

[eyez0nme]

THE MEN BEHIND THE SUN (or BLACK SUN 731) is in my humble opinion the single most gruesome, horrifying and upsetting film ever made. It honestly makes CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST and CANNIBAL FEROX look like happy, sunny strolls in the jungle in comparison. Based on real historical fact, the film follows the horrendous experiments the Japanese performed on Chinese and Russian POWs toward the end of WWII. Led by a madman named Shiro Ishii, they experiment on men, women and even children, using biological and chemical weapons on them, freezing them, gassing them and even putting them in pressure chambers until their entrails explode out of their bodies. After the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Japanese order a pullout and Ishii insists that they destroy all the evidence that this hellhole ever existed.

I am about as hardened a film-goer as you can get. I thought ILSA, SHE WOLF OF THE SS contained a few sequences that were somewhat humorous. I thought Pasolini's SALO, THE 120 DAYS OF SODOM was a pretentious art film and wasn't nearly as disturbing as it sounded when described. MEN BEHIND THE SUN, on the other hand, got deep under my skin and was one of the first films in years to cause me to lose sleep. The gore is positively vile (including a scene using a real cadaver) but the worst part of this film is that everything you see, more or less, actually happened. The film is based on some very solid historical evidence and facts. It is a film you should watch in complete and utter shame, shame that humanity is capable of the atrocities seen here. It's not a film that is even remotely enjoyable but it is, however very well made, though it does descend into exploitation in two particular sequences (one featuring the real life death of a cat, the other using a real cadaver). I thus, cannot really recommend it to anybody. Do watch it if you want to know what really happened during the war and perhaps watch it if you want to know how far a film can go, but don't say I didn't warn you. It's not a film I want to watch again for a long, long time.

This film loses a star from what would have been a 7/10 rating thanks to a truly tasteless scene where a real cat is murdered before the cameras (the fast forward button on your DVD remote was obviously made for stuff like this). Like CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST, MEN BEHIND THE SUN is a rather hypocritical film. It's meant to preach against deplorable violence and yet animals are murdered on screen in very bad taste.

[Zonehunter1]

Crap you do not like to answer questions do you?
And did you copy and paste that from a website?

[CNagy]

Sounds like both "reviews" have been copied from a site somewhere.

[Zonehunter1]

I call a thread burning then.

[MeneerDijk]

You called correctly, closed. eyez0nme, read your mail