i am fascinated by disturbing films but too often i am disappointed with films that claim to be such. men behind the sun at first had me a bit skeptic due to the horrible voice overs however that is a minor attribute to the film so i went on with watching it. i was surprisingly satisfied with what i encountered. though it is not as realistically gory as i expected, it definitely is disturbing. whats even more disturbing is the fact that it is based on true events, events which took place at unit 731 in pingfang china in 1935-1945, here experiments which were depicted in men behind the sun took place. i read an interview with the director and he claims that the experiments that actually took place in unit 731 were far worse than what he depicted in the film. if you enjoy gory and disturbing films such as salo or cannibal holocaust then you will definitely enjoy men behind the sun. i was a little shaken up with the cat scene, i always feel that exploiting animals is not justifiable for the sake of any art form (cannibal holocaust disappointed me greatly due to the multiple real animal killings), however it turns out the scene with the cat was not real and that relieves me :) though it is in fact not real the scene is still very gory and disturbing nonetheless. the autopsy scene is also very memorable and unpleasant perhaps because it is a real autopsy, the director claims they were able to obtain a young boys corpse because a young boy had died at a local hospital, (i find this a bit weird seeing as the body which is undergoing the autopsy seems to be an adult rather than a young buy, however i got this information from the interview i read with the director so i took it as truth). another scene which is pretty horrific is the scene where rats are set on fire while still alive. the birds eye view camera angle makes this scene look pretty awesome because the rats appear to be balls of fire just running frantically on the street and again i do not condone this but it is all part of the horrors behind this film. in short if you want to be disturbed and have upsetting images in your head this is the movie for you. enjoy
Review of Man Behind the Sun
