[10] In the last days of WW II, the
Japanese developed bacteriological weapons: 731 Battalion, in occupied
Manchuria, was a top-secret establishment for testing these on the
local population. 'Man Behind the Sun' describes the activities that
went on, in graphic detail, yet manages to avoid the pitfalls of other
pseudo-historical docudramas. It devotes time to building the
characters: although the sympathy is clearly with the victims, the
Japanese are not sneering caricatures but real people who believed
they were doing the best for the Empire. This makes it even more
harrowing as they lose all human emotions towards their test subjects,
or 'marutas' as they call them (in an effort to dehumanize them, just
as the Americans called the Vietmanese 'gooks'). Even though half an
hour elapses before the first atrocity, this is no sanitised TVM, it's
a slow descent into hell. Great detail is paid to historical accuracy
- we get victims' names and ages, dates and places which contrasts
markedly with the fast & loose approach of more exploitative films.
There's no morally sound, happy ending, either - this could well be
the 'Henry' of war movies. It's not a film to enjoy, or even to like
(and so can't be 'marked out of 10') but it's undoubtedly one to be
respected.
