KillBill5669 I found this movie on Netflix. All I was told in the synopsis of the movie was that it was based on true events and was half movie and half documentary about biological and chemical warfare being developed/tested in a place called Unit 731. I didn't even know when I started watching it that it was 2 parts (4 hours)long until I got to the last scene of part 1 which is of a naked woman strapped down with her legs spread wide open and a creepy sicko doctor inserting a cockroach into her vagina! That was the end for me, I won't be moving on to part 2. If you like your movies sick and twisted, watch it, otherwise I'd advise you to find something else. And if you're curious about the events at Unit 731 do some internet searches and learn about it that way. Everything else has been said about this movie so there's no more reason to go on about it.

natoriousg The past reviewer was spot on, so much unnecessary footage. If you're going to pretend that this is an honest interpretation of what actually happened then keep the ratio of snow-white-perfectly-proportioned-westerner victims in check compared to the normal domestic test subjects who were vastly underrepresented in this picture. They claim that they weren't trying to demonize the Japanese in that incredibly pretentious let-me-tell-you-how-to-interpret-this-movie segment at the beginning, but It sure seemed like the majority of horrors of war were apportioned to one side. War is dirty, war is nasty, war is savage. The Japanese did many evil things, and had many evil things done to them by Westerners, a little balance would be nice.

frequency-2 This epic is 4 hours long. Much of that 4 hours is the exterior of a building which may or may not be the one in question. In a prologue the director and I think one of the producers tell us, among other things, that they "did not research" a lot of the facts.But they say their work is based on facts and that the movie is supposed to be about death and war....There is a fair amount of interesting stuff in the movie, enough for maybe 90 minutes. But not 4 hours. I think they wanted to give the viewer some sense of ennui by showing the building the falling snow from this angle, from that angle, from another angle...all with no narration over and over. It seemed like about 2 minutes of story and 5 minutes of exterior of building in the falling snow for 4 hours.I may be exaggerating, but not much. As for the story....Those who know about Unit 731 may be offended by this film as an effort to cash in on a grisly reputation. Others may be offended by it's portrayal of one American and several Russians as the victims of Unit 731. I am pretty sure the majority of victims were a very diverse group consisting of P.O.W.s from all who fought against Japan, Chinese locals and even Japanese criminals. Pregnant women as well as children were also prey to the heinous Japanese "doctors" of Unit 731.Regardless, the whole thing to me comes off as lame bondage/torture-porn. That you MIGHT get some idea of a story out of if you take notes when they are actually speaking. Even if you are looking for Bondage/toture-porn keep the remote handy, you have a lot of the building in the falling snow from this angle, from that angle, from another angle...all with no narration over and over to fast forward through.

knifeintheeye Obviously with a running time of 4.5 hours, this is not an easy watch, but considering that 3 hours of the movie is pure human atrocity, this will try both your stomach and mental capacity. I watched the opening 1.5 hours, went away and came back to finish the film—a pseudo documentary.I had two complaints with the film. From the little I know on Unit 731, most of the experiments were carried out on Chinese prisoners, but the film only featured Caucasians. The other complaint was the effects. It's too bad they weren't better since the bodies often looked like plasticine.The sound effects and music were perfect, and the last hour was an interesting touch (I won't spoil it, but I will say this: It was a complete left turn from the first three and a half hours).If I had to pick one word to describe this movie, it would not be extreme, or gore, or sickening (but all three would make great descriptions), but simply: deliberate. Each scene is played out in deliberate excruciating detail. Case in point is the opening scene walking through the snow for five (?) minutes and the scene where the man is freezing outside.