Hei tai yang 731 (1988)

Watch Man Behind the Sun expecting something along the lines of a Chinese Ilsa movie and you might be in for a surprise: this film has none of the camp qualities to be found in most POW exploitation—it's pure cinematic harshness from start to finish with not a buxom leather-booted commandant in sight.

Set at the end of WWII, director T. F. Mous' harrowing tale centres on Camp 731, a medical centre where the Japanese attempt to perfect bacterial weapons, using Chinese prisoners as guinea pigs in their nasty experiments. Mous' objective is to reveal to the world how his people suffered at the hands of their enemy, and in this he totally succeeds; the atrocities that are depicted in Man Behind The Sun are completely sickening and disgustingly convincing.

From the moment that a woman's baby is smothered in snow by a soldier, to the depressing, downbeat finalé in which the camp is razed to the ground by a retreating Japanese army (after shooting and burning all prisoners), this unflinching portrayal of man's inhumanity to man is a total gut-wrencher and certainly not recommended viewing for the easily offended.

In this film, people are treated worse than animals and the 'experiments' they have to endure are shown in every nauseatingly graphic detail: a woman has her arms frozen and then dunked in hot water, allowing the flesh to be easily ripped from her bones; a prisoner is placed in a decompression chamber resulting in his intestines erupting from his body (a scene rumoured to use a real body, but which, according to the director, was actually achieved using special effects); a boy is tricked into being the subject of a live 'autopsy' (cast-iron stomach necessary for this bit—real autopsy footage was shot for this scene!!); and a group of prisoners are 'crucified' in a field and used for target practice by Japanese bombers.

On top of all this there are also two moments of animal cruelty that will have pet-lovers up in arms: a cat is thrown to hungry rats and is eaten alive (not sure if this was done with FX or not, but the cat doesn't look too thrilled), and a load of rats are also set on fire (now this is definitely real!!).

As you have probably gathered, Man Behind The Sun is hard going and should be watched with caution. However, it is a well made film that does what it set out do do—educate viewers about the horrors of war. It's a hard one to rate, because it is such a gruelling movie and can't really be described as entertaining, but I'll give it 8/10 for being so genuinely disturbing.