Hei tai yang 731 xu ji zhi sha ren gong chang

The uncut version was originally refused classification by the OFLC in Australia in September of 1992. One month later, the film was resubmitted, only heavily cut. It received an R18+ rating for cinema release, but when the heavily cut version was resubmitted for a video rating in 1994, it was again refused classification and banned in Australia, even though the same print was given a cinema rating. Finally, in 2004, the film was resubmitted and received an R18+ rating for the original uncut print on video.

After the film was released on DVD in the Netherlands and then in Austria in 2012, the world's first Blu-ray followed in Hong Kong in 2019. It was noticeable here that the autopsy scene and other bits of violence were filled with an SD image source. Obviously, the original HD master, possibly the original theatrical version from Hong Kong, was heavily censored. But unfortunately, not all of the missing scenes were completely restored, so this Blu-ray is to be classified as cut. It then became curious with the Blu-ray in the USA in 2023, because this was apparently based on the same HD master, but reworked with a completely different color scheme and the inserts for the autopsy scene, for example, were added in a slightly more detailed way. It was therefore assumed that the film had finally been reconstructed uncut, unfortunately, they only created exactly the same cut version as on the Hong Kong Blu-ray. In September 2024, the German-language Blu-ray premiere in mediabooks followed in Austria, which explicitly advertised that the version is "longer than in Hong Kong and the USA" and uncut. Except for a surprising alternative shot in one scene (the HD master is similarly explicit and even longer than the old DVD), the version on this new Blu-ray has been correctly reconstructed to the uncut version and is therefore recommended in principle. What was actually missing in Hong Kong and the USA is largely unspectacular, or at least it is by no means the film's hardest moments: a (presumably racist) folk song and an implied rape were only hinted at here and run longer in the uncut version.

Edited into Hei tai yang 731 si wang lie che (1994)