Mou Tun-fei’s 1988 Hong Kong film Black Sun 731 has a reputation that precedes it. For someone who has never been especially squeamish, it remains the one film from childhood that genuinely got under my skin.
Around 1989, our homeroom teacher announced during break that the TV listings said a certain station would show 731 that week. She told us to watch with our parents if we could, to see how brutal the Japanese had been and to understand how hard-won our present life was.
Mainland China had no rating system then. The film was Hong Kong’s first Category III title after the territory’s rating system was reworked, yet it was packaged as educational material and shown on local television. I do not remember whether it had a proper theatrical release. What I do remember is that watching it could make a child physically and mentally sick—unless an adult changed the channel in time.
For two or three years, it seemed to turn up whenever I was flipping channels. Then it vanished. Maybe someone with authority finally realized what was being broadcast.
The plot hardly matters. The set pieces are too memorable; discussing the story feels beside the point.
First: the frostbite experiment. In freezing Harbin, water is poured over a prisoner’s arms and left to freeze solid. Later, in the lab, the arms are soaked in warm water. A tap on the arm and the flesh separates from the bone, leaving white bone exposed. Two skeletal arms alone might not be terrifying, but the way the camera cuts—a flash—makes it unbearable.
Second: the rats used for plague research. Thousands of them. Rats plus density: that is enough. There were no computer effects then; the production bought live rats from local people one by one. Worse is a scene in which Shiro Ishii throws a cat into the mass of rats and the cat is bitten to death. Just thinking about it makes my skin crawl. The cat was alive too.
Third: the decompression experiment. A human body bursts under internal pressure, intestines and waste spilling out.
Fourth: several labs need fresh organs at once, so a young soldier is sent to lure a child in from outside. The child is cut open alive. Someone says: “If they want a heart, they get a heart; if they want a liver, they get a liver.”
Fifth: the old Japanese soldier in charge of burning bodies drinks and dances while shoving human organs into the crematorium.
Mou Tun-fei is a madman. Other directors add sex or gore to pull in more viewers. He seems to relish portraying cruelty for its own sake. He also made another infamous film, The Beasts. I would not recommend it as a casual watch.