Hēi Tài Yáng (Men Behind the Sun) (1988)

(Also known as Man Behind the Sun)

I was planning on making this review a question of the moral fabric that separates us from the wild animals in conjunction with the director's overall intentions behind making this film and how I actually see it.

Seeing this as the wrong way to go and not wanting to just bash this movie as propaganda or an exploitation of atrocious acts of man (because that is clearly an option I have) but it claims to be more than this. I myself don't see it.

The only thing going for this film in terms of not being something that...............


Alright, this movie is boring and I don't see what all the fuss is about. For someone who claims to not be lambasting the Japanese, director T.F. Mous (born Mou Tun Fei) does a good job portraying the Japanese as one of three things-- insane (laughing insane), drunk, or a blind follower.

Now, I don't deny the fact that the people behind Unit 731 were fucking crazy, but I don't think they went around laughing like some kind of homicidal nutcase (clearly they were) or dancing while disposing of body parts. These certain aspects are intended to invoke anger in the audience (clearly a tool of the propaganda film genre--something Mous has experience in) and the blood on the flag is practically the nail in the coffin, signifying the blood will forever tarnish the nation of Japan--thus contradicting the statement made in the beginning of the film "Friendships are friendships; history is history".

It would only be so if you wouldn't shove so much hate (albeit rightfully deserved) down the throats of everyone and not doing any justice. For a movie claiming to be an educational tool used to shed light on events that most people have never heard about, but to be quite honest with you I didn't learn a damn thing watching this movie until the credits began to roll and explained the aftermath--The Americans granted the man behind the whole thing (a Lieutenant General Shiro Ishii) full immunity from war crimes and made him hand his work over to them.

To be used in the Korean War....By Ishii himself.



Frankly, I cannot recommend anyone to watch this movie. I cannot truly understand why this movie is considered what it is (the wikipedia page for Unit 731 is more frightening than this movie). I really wish people would open their eyes and realize this movie is nothing more than blood and gore dancing behind facts and the loss of innocent lives.

There was more against the actual people (making them laugh and applaud like madmen while throwing ceramic pots in the air) than what they did to innocent people with them (shown briefly in an easily forgettable scene of gore and missing limbs). This is why this is not educational or informative, but rather exploitation and propaganda (and a pale example of it at that).

Displaying these people, not as stone cold as they were remembered to be but as some kind of laughing imbeciles is making them look almost like cartoon characters and not to be taken any more serious than "wow, that guy is fucking weird and look at him pull that ladies armpit hairs" instead of "wow, that guy is a stone cold killer and look at him with his granite face killing those people. That fucker has no heart". These people were not laughing as they killed people (well, this could be argued) and the only reason they are in this film is to easily invoke anger and hatred--much like propaganda is suppose to. Do you honestly think that the man who called people fucking pieces of wood was lauging as he did it?

If you wanted to make it educational and have people learn then perhaps you should have done it like everyone else--a fucking documentary. I always think hearing it from people that were there is far more daunting than having someone recreate it all.

The director always makes it a point in his interviews to bring up the time he showed the film to a college class in Tokyo where no one believed Japan would do something like this and that it was all made up, but just to have actual people from Unit 731 stand up and tell them that it really did happen. Do you see what happened there? People with actual experience standing and talking about the crimes they committed. This my friends is how you get a point across, you shove actual facts and first hand experiences in their faces and not some rallying cry to the people who have been wronged.

This movie is suppose to shock and disgust and I really do feel that it is using the actual facts as some kind of facade to hide behind. It isn't doing the thousands of people who died any justice, but rather using their deaths as some kind of......well exploitation actually. This film is exploiting the loss of life in order to instill this hate for another country and it will kill actual animals and show an actual autopsy of a little boy to get the message through to the people--whatever the hell that is.

I really went into watching this hoping to get some kind of understanding as to why it happened and what exactly they did, but all I got was a romp through the shit fields and the only thing this film invoked from me is a true hatred for everyone behind this movie.

Fuck this stupid film. If you really want to learn about such a tragic time in history then do not watch this piece of crap (or the four hour long Philosophy of a Knife--something I almost did) and pick up a book, read for Christ's sake, and I honestly mean this. Don't watch this and think you have a firm grasp on what happened all those years ago. These events are something that just can't be recreated and have it match.

This falls into the same rickety boat as the Holocaust in that I believe they can't be done any justice in cinema and even making a movie on it is clearly exploiting the loss of life in order to make money or "prove some point" and it just isn't right, and to have this shitty film in my concious for the rest of my days and to have it being passed off as educational is a slap in the face.


I could have easily said I hated it and I thought it was a shitty exploitation/propaganda piece of refuse and I feel sorry for the people that enjoy this movie because I know why they do, and those little bits of blood and violence should bring shame to everyone who claims this movie displays and merits any kind of educational or thought provoking understanding. This movie is a blatant and diplorable exploitation of those who lost their lives in order to craft some kind of current of pride in the hearts of the nation that was treated like lumber. I cannont commend this movie in any way, I thought it was tasteless and brought about a sense of pure disgust--a feeling I have never felt before--but not for the people behind the act, but rather the people who are using the act in such a way that brings about all the wrong emotions.

Fucking garbage and a waste of my time. Please don't make it a waste of yours and go read about Unit 731 and use that as your basis for trying to understand just what happened.

Tokyo Gore Police (2008)

(My third attempt in trying to review this movie)


Over the course of my life I have seen many many things, I have seen just about everything happen to a human body and I have sat through countless "gore" films, but I can honestly say nothing, and I mean nothing, is as outrageously violent and over-the-top as Yoshiro Nishimura's Tokyo Gore Police.

This movie succeeds where most uber-violent films fail in that this movie isn't trying to be something it is not. Most "underground" or "gore" films these days are trying to play of glorifying violence as some kind of art form, when really all it is is some fetishistic lust for seeing life destroyed in the most obscene (read: trying way too hard at making it real looking) way possible.

They usually take this rout or the even shittier rout the Saw films have decided to take and that is using violence and death as some sort of tool to teach people just how important life is. Don't get me wrong, it is a noble cause, but I just don't see someone having a giant machine strapped to their head or some elaborate Rube Goldberg-esque monstrosity is the right way to explain the need to sustain life.

Where this film separates itself from the rest of the competition (I use this term very lightly) is that it knows exactly what it is trying to be--fucking batshit insane. This movie does not value life or lessons or even a plot that truly matters, but where it lacks in moral messages it makes up for being the most outlandish use of violence I have ever seen. A woman with acidic breast milk, a man with an elephant size penis cannon, another woman who gets her lower torso shot off and grows some kind of alligator mouth to replace the legs she lost, oh, and a pissing human chair...Seriously, I can't make this shit up.

I am not joking when I tell you some man has a huge cannon in place of his member (which was bitten off by the nipple missing alligator leg woman. Oh yea, she has no nipples, forgot to mention that part) and I know it sounds like something that just couldn't be real, but I assure you, there are these things in this film (take that life lesson!) and it doesn't shy away from showing some blood.

This brings me to my next point. There is more blood in this movie than in any other film ever made. There is more of it in the first four minutes than anywhere else in cinema today. Hell, there is more of it in the wrist cutting scene in the beginning that there is in an actual human body. It is that bloody, and the thing about it is that it isn't trying to be realistic with the bloodshed. It has every single injury shooting out gallons and gallons of the stuff and the director makes it a point to cover the floor (and the screen) as many times as he can.

It really does make my head hurt trying to review this one. It is so far out there that I am afraid if I try to analyze it too much (which no one ever should do) that it might turn some off to seeing it. This movie is something that I highly enjoyed watching. It isn't the greatest film ever, but it sure as hell isn't the worst film I have seen (beats the piss out of most American films of the same genre, and I don't even pay attention to what they shovel out anymore) and I think that is what the director had in mind.

For what it is (just a plain ol' exhibition and glorification of violence) it sure does a good job at keeping the blood flowing and me interested. I like being able to laugh at someone getting their head cut off, not expecting to believe it is real (believe me, it pales in comparison to the real thing).

Alright.....I can't do it anymore, this movie is one even I can't even review without doing it some kind of injustice. You either hate it or love it, there is no middle ground in Tokyo Gore Police. I could go on and tell you the leading lady Eihi Shiina is from Takashi Miike's Audition (another film everyone should see by the way) or that this is a remake of a independent film the director made named Anatomia Extinction.

I could even go on to tell you the actual story that weaves itself in and out of the film--Tokyo is in shambles due to a mad scientist know as "Key Man" who puts keys into people turning them into things called "Engineers" and all hell takes a shit when the bad ass police force gets involved in stopping them and there is a lot of blood and shit you would only see in the notebook of the weird ass kid in the back of the class. Blah blah blah.




Seriously, a woman grows an alligator mouth for legs. If this isn't a sign that this film needs to be watched then I don't know what would suffice as a reason.

How about a picture:







Sure as shit beats the pissing human chair or the snail lady......

Watch it.

Hercules in New York (1970)

Do you see that picture up there? Do you see how awesome this movie looks? It seems to be that Arnold really is Hercules and that is actual light emitting from his massive medical text book sized hands. His pecs glistening in some kind of holy light, and his hair perfectly parted, as if carved out of granite itself.

Well, it is all a lie, this movie is a Herculean piece of shit, and I am going to tell you why. It actually pains me to have to talk about this movie. There are some movies that are described as "so bad it's funny" and I can understand that statement being made in some cases, but to even try and pin that on this movie would be doing it too much justice. This movie happens to fall in the dreaded "so bad it's painful" catagory, bad doesn't begin to tell the tale that this monstrosity weaves.

The first thing I noticed when watching this movie, the excitement pinning my eyelids so far into my head I couldn't blink (this has been one of those movies I have wanted to see for about a decade now and just never got a chance to, and it being Arnold's first actual film is reason enough to want to see it), but one the opening credits started I didn't see Arnold's name. Where is it? Did they not put him in? What the hell is going on? Wait a Goddamn minute..You mean to tell me Arnold "Strong" is Arnold Schwarzenegger, The Arnold Schwarzenegger lambasted his own name for some kind of ironic play on both comedian cast member Arnold Stang's name and the size of his human bus body? Could they not afford his entire name or something? Well, this was only a minor set back, something that would look like a mere mess up, because once he opened his mouth I heard the most foulest sound I have ever heard in my time on this planet:

........This would have been the first video ever posted on my blog, and it would have been something amazing. The sad thing is that every video I happen to find on YouTube used Arnold's actual voice and not the dubbed version of the film I watched (which is the original mind you), and what makes this sad is that I am probably the only person who has had to sit through this shitty version of the film since the early 70's. In order to sum up what the overdub sounded like I want you to picture a robotic Arnold (in this case, him portraying the Terminator would suffice), alright now give him an impeccable American accent (lets say from somewhere that doesn't really have an accent, like California), okay now I need you to picture him speaking as if he had a stick shoved far into his ass. That is pretty much the only way I can sum up how this sounded without just saying "it sounded like shit". I wish I could convey to you how wide my eyes were when Arnold first opened his mouth ( I was hoping to hear some thick Austrian and then have him rip Zues's head off) and I heard some guy who is pretty much the exact polar opposite of what Arnold actually sounds like (some Californian robot with a stick up it's ass). I was reluctant to turn it off right then and there, but I gave it the benifit of the doubt, the biggest doubt ever known to man.

The acting, well, to put it as frank as possible, I have seen better acting in gas pedal porn fetish films. It was just cardboard characters and Arnie's pulsating pecs (seriously, everytime he takes his shirt off he poses like it is Mr. Universe all over again).

I can't completely shoot this film down though. Despite it being the something I wouldn't put pass the C.I.A. to use in it's colorful practices or something Charles Manson would consider "full of substantial mentionings of artistic quality", it did offer one of the worst scenes ever acted out in front of a camera. How to come out and say this....

Arnold beats the Hundred Acre Woods out of some brown bear (I mean he beats the living shit out of this bear, bare handedly) and then is commended for fighting (probably killing) this bear in the paper the next day.

This movie is shit, and there is no way around it. This movie is a pain to sit through (something I submit myself to frequently) and you will probably need a cold shower afterwards, and maybe some sleep.

For the love of everything good on this planet ( Greek Gods to the woodland creatures rightfully included) don't watch this movie.

Don't watch it. Do not watch this movie ever, ever, not even for laughs. Take heed of what I say to you.

For the really curious (or masochists alike) though;

If you are going to watch any part of this, watch him beat the bear up. It is seriously the only redeeming part of the movie (forget the chariot scene or the javilin scene or the movie theatre scene or the taxi scene or the dock fight scene (actually....watch this fight too))

If the Greeks only knew that this shit was going to happen.....