I gave it a 7.5 out of 10

Brilliant and touching

It's not great by any means, but it's a pretty good movie that didn't leave me filled with regret for investing time in it.

The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

This movie was mentioned in passing in Dr. Craig Reid's masterpiece, THE ULTIMATE GUIDE TO MARTIAL ARTS MOVIES OF THE 1970s, so I decided to check it out. My bad. "History is history," we're informed prior to the first scene- and it's in that frame of mind that I sat through this one. Needless to say, this isn't the kind of movie I could recommend to anyone other than a scholar or historian. And animal lovers beware: we see a live cat being fed to a roomful of ravenous rats (fake or not, it's a gratuitous depiction that only distracts the viewer- as is the subsequent burning-alive of these rats; which clearly was NOT faked). I have to admit that my regard for a filmmaker goes WAY down when I see them engaging in on screen animal cruelty (faked or not, because even faked depictions of this kind of thing all too often inspires the real thing): the lack of empathy is apparent, but it's the taking of a LIFE that ****es me off.

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

Many of you who's found your way to this page on IMDb, probably already know pretty much what you're getting yourself into. It's terrible, horrifying, sickening, disgusting yet well-made, well- acted and well-directed. It's truly a unique movie, and I can appreciate all the things it does oh so right. If you're looking for something that can show you the ugly side of war or human beings, then you've found it - this is the real deal, and makes Schindler's List look like a day at the theme park in comparison. But I gotta say, that this is too much. While everything that's being showed doesn't feel out of place or bad in any way, this is not why I go watch movies - it made me depressed and made me feel HORRIBLY bad after I watched it. While the truth of war and reality of things can work in movies, it doesn't work here - it goes beyond whatever we call entertainment or even film, and becomes a document of the most disgusting events you can imagine. If you're a moviegoer like me who appreciates good movies and well done ones, I can't recommend this to you. If you're just looking for something shocking and grossed out, well, this is probably for you. But damn man, I'm telling you, be READY for what to come. I expected it to affect me, but not this much. It's not so much the events that makes the film horrible - which many reviewers makes it look like - but the overall feeling of authenticity and complete darkness and depression. If this film wouldn't be so damn well-made it'd probably just be another forgotten world war 2-movie.I've been trying my limits for a long time now, seeing "the worst there is to see" and never really being content or felt that my limit was reached. Well, now it is, and I've frankly had enough. Seeing blood and guts are fine compared to the truly depressed and sickening feeling I had after watching this.To sum the movie review up: After I saw it I couldn't eat for a week. If that's something you're looking for, then you'll be one pleased movie-goer, but if you're like me and still value the little peace you have in your body, then stay away.