Cody Rapp (biscutbuu69) Possible Spoilers! A Hong Kong Horror War film from 1995 from the director of 'Men Behind the Sun' and tonight's movie is 'Men behind the Sun 4' aka 'Black Sun: Nanking Massacre'In 1937, Japanese troops raid the Chinese city of Nanking to execute a planned massacre by subjecting over 300,000 helpless civilians to various tortures and atrocities before slaughtering them all.This film is actually based on the war crime The Rape of Nanking. Now for those of you who do not know The Nanking Massacre was an episode of mass murder and mass rape committed by Japanese troops against the residents of Nanking during the second world war over 300,000 Chinese civilians and disarmed combatants were murdered by soldiers of the Imperial Japanese Army. The most notorious atrocity was a killing contest between two Japanese officers. The contest— a race between the two officers to see which of them could kill 100 people first using only a sword, this contest was covered much like a sporting event in newspapers with regular updates on the score over a series of days.Much like the first 'Men behind the sun' film this one isn't fully true but its still an interesting film but its still just pure exploitation, I don't want to say fun so I'll say nastiness. If you like the first film for how violent, upsetting and interesting it was this one is about the same accept this isn't medical experiments its war crimes which one could argue is worse. The acting is pretty decent along with the writing. The camera work and lighting are really good. But the show stealer here is the gore, its over the top and times and just right at others, the film doesn't get boring like the first sequel to MBTS. The film is graphic, upsetting, kinda cheesy, but all and all its just classic exploitation. And its not for everyone you shouldn't expect the best cinematic representation of War atrocities from a series of exploitation films. Some times the film even replaces the gorier scenes with historical photos of these things happening like pictures of dead innocent children who where massacred.On the gore meter from one to ten One being something like 'The Corpse Grinders' and Ten being something like 'Braindead'. 'Black Sun' is a 6 It isn't super gory but with the medium amount of gore and the fact that this film is based on actual war crimes brings it up a notch. Also there is a good amount of baby death in this one too!'Black sun' while an interesting film still isn't as good as MBTS but its a step in the right direction for the films subject matter. One film I think honestly is only worth one watch its interesting but not amazing disturbing or violent to warrent many viewings and honestly for this film its a good thing. 4/5

t_atzmueller The original "Men behind the Sun" – the Chinese "Schindler's List", as it is often described – was no doubt a sordid little piece of propaganda and it is unlikely that many people watched it because they were historically interested in the topic of Japanese occupation of China during World War 2. No, most viewers watched it for one purpose and one purpose alone: the violence, the splatter and the (often) realistic and (often) even un-simulated gore. Among the audience were usually horror-fans who had become too jaded to enjoy "harmless" flicks like "Friday the 13th" or "Evil Dead" and had move on to harder stuff like "Cannibal Holocaust", the Japanese "Guinea Pig"-films or pseudo-documentaries like "Faces of Death" (and worst).Those who stayed with the "Men behind the Sun"-series through two sequels, stayed with it for the same reason.Trouble however was, watching hardcore splatter-films has the same effect as working in a slaughterhouse: it desensitizes the viewer. There are so many ways to portray a mangled carcass before the variations run out and the viewer is left with the "I've seen this before, so what"-syndrome. Sure, "MBtS 4" offers some pretty gruesome stuff, both authentic illustrations of atrocities and re-enactments. Perhaps the goriest scene in the movie is the "forced abortion" via a Japanese bayonet but where can you go from pierced plastic-fetuses? You may have noticed that IMDb has among the genre-descriptions "war", "drama" and "history", all which is true but in all that's right, it should have added another: "exploitation". It is that sense of glee with which the atrocities are depicted that sets it apart from above mentioned film by Steven Spielberg (and now just imagine if Mr. Spielberg had used real body parts and the general "reaction" that would have followed).We could say that "MBtS 4" was a prime example of a genre eating its own children. It happened to the Italian Zombie-films, it happened to the Cannibal-genre, it's happening to the SAW-franchise and the whole torture-porn-sub genre right now.As said: this film isn't for those people who are historically interested – plenty of documentaries on the topic for those. This film is for the dissolute gore-hounds among the audience; at least those that haven't moved on to watching shock-sites on the internet.As to giving it points or a rating: always difficult for those kinds of films. One the gorehound-scale it would probably get a 7 or even 8 out of 10, as a "real" film it would probably receive a lot less, maybe somewhere in the range of 3 or 4 points.Truly depraved stuff, so just don't say I haven't warned you.

Nelson Von Stricker I really don't know what to think of this movie. I would say that, after the first 30 minutes I was ready to dismiss it. I don't think it's inability to pick a genre is a virtue (though I think it could have been). I also think the film comes off way too much like a propaganda film for the People's Republic. It seems to suggest that the "Rape of Nanking" was some kind of secret. Well, for whatever reason, I knew about it already, and so I thought that attitude was rather odd. Another random thing: that introduction is bizarre. There must have been 30-40 cuts in 90 seconds. That's just insane. It didn't work in my mind. But anyway, the director has more balls than any American or even just any mainstream filmmaker would in depicting the atrocities. Though an atrocity doesn't automatically make a good film, I still find this attempt at truly conveying the horror commendable. And further, there is no imposed happy ending, unlike western films that try to deal with these things. For that, I think I can forgive the stylistic difficulties.

EVOL666 THE NANKING MASSACRE is another solid piece of work from T.F. Mou regarding the atrocities that the Japanese brought upon the Chinese in WWII. Personally, I felt that this installment lacked the punch of MEN BEHIND THE SUN, but was still very effective in trying to relate the horrors of war and oppression. There are a few "gore" scenes, but to be quite honest, they almost come off a little comically (or i'm just sick...). I found the "forced abortion" and the "baby in the rice steamer" scenes to be pretty hilarious, though I'm sure they weren't meant to be - the FX just looked silly and not horrifying. That's not to make light of the film itself or of what actually happened in China at that time period. All-in-all I found the film to be very moving, and should really be looked at as a history lesson more than as a horror film. I know that "extreme" horror fans will seek this and MEN BEHIND THE SUN out for their notorious reputations as "shocking" and "horrific" gore films, but I think that those who are just looking for blood-and-guts will be severely disappointed. As I stated before, these are neither horror nor gore films, but a fictionalized recreation of events. Either way, I feel that they are both good films, although I prefer MEN BEHIND THE SUN over THE NANKING MASSACRE. Definitely not for everyone due to some graphic material, but highly recommended 7 1/2 out of 10