the audience applauded

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

Honestly this movie is very, very upsetting. It's like going back into time, and watching old nightmares come back alive. It was powerful, raw, and just downright depressing. Few movies has made me felt so angry and emotional than this film. There was nothing good about it. It was a borderline snuff film. There are some exploitative gross out moments, like an unborn baby being pulled out of a pregnant woman's stomach via bayonette or scenes with children getting rape. The scene of hundreds of bodies being burned on the beach is truly haunting. Unlike films like 2009's City of War: The Story of John Rabe or 2007's Nanking that shows disturbing historic scenes, but also uplifting real life accents or stories of heroic figures trying to save them. This film is pure negatively exploitation with no linear storyline. Instead, the film has a small handful of overlapping vignettes detailing the horrors and atrocities inflicted on the citizens. There isn't any scene in the movie where you can rest from the amount of violence, gore, and disturbing imagery. You don't come out of watching the film feeling like there is any hope for mankind. You just feel sick in your stomach. Men Behind the Sun 4 or Black Sun: the Nanking Massacre is about the real life accents of what happen in 1937, when Japanese troops raid the Chinese city of Nanking to execute a planned massacre by subjecting over 300,000 helpless civilians to various tortures, rapes, and atrocities before slaughtering them all. The director's depiction of the Japanese is as heartless and soulless savages, while the Chinese are shown as meek and submissive is interesting to say. I think in real life, there had to be some Japanese soldiers that felt that what they were doing to the Chinese was wrong, and I doubt the Chinese would have been that submissive. There is only a few scenes of Chinese trying to fight back, while no scenes of Japanese soldiers questioning their actions. There is no clear main character in the film, as it follows the story of many men and women trying to survive. Too bad, none of them, survive that long to get the audience hook on them. The movie desensitizes the audience by not having a main character to root for. There is little or no any educational value behind seeing people die. The movie seems to follow step with Iris Chang's book, "The Rape of Nanking" and is, as far as I can see, historically accurate. I don't know how much exploitation it has for exploitation's sake. Still, It's very factual and very well filmed. The backdrop is so intricate, I can only imagine how much time and money went in to its production. Mixed with real film footage and photographs of the actual events, the film really shows the atrocities of war. The movie was directed Tun Fei Mou who known for disturbing movie such as 1988's "Man Behind the Sun". Don't worry, the Men Behind the Sun's Saga has nothing to do with each other, so you wouldn't miss anything if you don't watch the original or the Godfrey Ho's films "Man Behind the Sun 2: Laboratory of the Devil" and "Man Behind the Sun 3:Narrow Escape". There seems to be a few shots cut from the Hong Kong version against the U.S version. There is a Film tear 20 minutes in the film and another 41 minutes later. I heard that this was due to Chinese censorship, but I'm not for sure. It doesn't affect the movie U.S release version. The movie comes across as blatant anti-Japanese propaganda. Black Sun is not a documentary, and the emphasis is on shock rather than historical accuracy. Also, the connection between Black Sun to the rest of the exploitative "Men Behind the Sun" films doesn't help the film's credibility. Overall: Too much gore, lack of empathy to the characters portray in the film make this nothing, but an open wound between the relationship of Japan and China. This movie isn't no Chinese Schindler's List, there is void of no hope for anything good to come out of this film.

This is worth viewing and the DVD Special edition well worth buying for the 'extras', but there are one or two problems. I think the main difficulty is that the director has available to him awful, original footage of events and decides to mix these in with what for the main part can only be described as exploitative material. Nothing wrong with a good old exploitation movie of course but here the, probably cheaply done, massed bodies and brutal slayings look nothing compared to the original sickening footage. There are moments like the burning of the bodies at the river's edge that are undoubtedly powerful but for the most part we are only too aware that this is a one event movie spun out for the sole reason of showing the spilling of blood and guts and getting across the message that the Japanese are evil. Having said all that the DVD distributors have exceeded themselves and included notable items including a most illuminating 1944 US propaganda film, 'Why We Fight: The Battle Of China' - not to be missed.

BLACK SUN: THE NANKING MASSACRE (Hei Tai Yang: Nan Jing Da Tu Sha)Aspect ratio: 1.85:1Sound format: MonoDramatized account of events in 1937-38, when Japanese military forces overran the city of Nanking, unleashing a wave of barbarous cruelty on the defenceless population.Though hyped by its director as a sincere depiction of China's darkest hour, BLACK SUN: THE NANKING MASSACRE will be remembered chiefly for its exploitation trimmings, such as the scene in which a sneering Japanese soldier uses his bayonet to cut a foetus from the womb of a pregnant Chinese woman. It sounds horrific, but the incident is staged with freak-show explicitness more likely to generate laughter than horror - until one remembers that such things *did* happen during this period, and much worse besides...In narrative terms, the film offers a curious mixture of gruesome horror and earnest recreations of historical events, punctuated by lengthy scenes in which high-ranking Japanese officials argue the merits (or not) of their behavior toward 'enemy' civilians. Unlike the scenes of carnage, however, these dialogue exchanges are rendered with little or no visual flair, a stylistic conceit which serves the demand for historical accuracy whilst simultaneously blunting any possible sympathy the audience may develop for the Japanese characters. Director Mau Dui-fai - billed as 'T.F. Mous' - was previously responsible for such see-'em-and-vomit items as LOST SOULS (1980) and the notorious MEN BEHIND THE SUN (1988), and here he demonstrates an aptitude for sideshow theatrics which renders him uniquely suited to the subject at hand.For all its sensationalism, however, the movie is distinguished by an extraordinary *lack* of melodrama. Mau depicts the worst horrors (rape, decapitation, mass shootings and burnings) with po-faced solemnity, lapsing into carnival grotesquerie only when the pace threatens to flag. Those looking for sleazy thrills will get their money's worth, but "Black Sun" straddles the gap between commercial exploitation and journalistic integrity, and takes few prisoners along the way. Performances by a largely unknown cast are uniformly fine, and production values are top-notch for such downmarket fare.(Cantonese dialogue)

"Black Sun:The Nanking Massacre" is another harrowing piece of horror/war drama directed skillfully by Tun Fei Mou,the creator of two disturbing masterpieces "Man Behind the Sun" and "Lost Souls".The film stays soundly rooted in the retelling of events that took place in 1937-specifically,those actions that took place in the Chinese city of Nanking,where a planned massacre was ferociously and flippantly facilitated by the invading Japanese.The stock footage of Nanking massacre and actual killings is genuinely disturbing and not for the easily offended.The scene where a pregnant woman has her unborn baby torn from her stomach and skewered on the end of a Japanese soldier's bayonet is absolutely revolting.The sequence of the bodies being burned on the riverbank is truly powerful-the sight of these enormous flames racing across an entire landscape of dead people is especially hard to forget.The film is well-made and acted,and the photography is simply stunning.Watch this one in pair with Mou's "Man Behind the Sun"-just avoid two Godfrey Ho's films "Man Behind the Sun 2:Laboratory of the Devil" and "Man Behind the Sun 3:Narrow Escape".8 out of 10.