Philosophy of a Knife

Why is this 4 hours long? Could easily be edited down to 90 mnts

There are some interesting "historical" nuggets interwoven into endless B&W stills

Watch on fast forward if you must

Watching Philosophy of a Knife, it seems to me as though writer/director Andrey Iskanov considered T.F. Mou's 1988 Unit 731 shocker Man Behind The Sun to be A) not harrowing enough, and B) not nearly long enough: his film tackles the same harsh subject matter but in even more detail, and clocks in at over four hours. Not a film for the casual viewer, then.

A documentary consisting of genuine archive material, interview footage, and gory re-enactments of assorted atrocities, Philosophy delves into a world of callous, inhuman horror: the hideous experiments carried out on WWII prisoners in Unit 731, a Japanese biological and chemical warfare research complex. The film is, at turns, distressing, boring, and laughable: the historical imagery effectively drives home the depravity of war, the interview scenes, monotonous voiceover and interminable shots of heavy snowfall are sleep-inducing, and the splatter is way too excessive to be taken seriously.

Whereas, in reality, 731's unfortunate victims were primarily Chinese, here they are mostly pretty young caucasian women with far too much mascara and not enough pubic hair (was the 'landing strip' a thing back then?). The scientists carry out their grisly experiments with gusto, covering the walls and themselves in gore in the process, but the special effects aren't convincing enough to rival Mou's movie in terms of nastiness (Man Behind The Sun featured genuine autopsy footage and was rumoured to have used a real cadaver in its decompression chamber scene; Iskanov gives us rubbery prosthetic body parts and watery blood).

Amongst the 'so extreme they're actually funny' scenes, we get the removal of a fetus, extraction of teeth, the rape of a young woman by a man with syphilis, plague victims, frostbite experiments, face removal, phosphor burns, exposure to x-rays, gassing, and assorted clumsy vivisection. There's also a lot of nudity from both sexes, the most graphic moment featuring a large cockroach and a woman's nether regions.

With the film stretched out over such a long time (it's split into two halves, both of which are longer than most documentaries), and with risible attempts at art-house pretentiousness amidst all of the bodily fluids, the film is often gruelling for the wrong reasons. Man Behind The Sun remains the better and more disturbing movie by a long chalk.

I imagine, however, that no film will ever come close to capturing the real horror of Unit 731.

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.

This movie is four hours long for one reason: director Andrey Iskanov wanted it to be. Lacking enough actual subject matter to warrant a four hour running time, he compensates by having virtually every scene go on for at least twice as long as necessary and inserting numerous shots of snow falling, each of which goes on for several minutes. I would say there's close to a half hour of footage of snow in this movie.

We get surgeons meticulously putting on rubber gloves, prisoners being led down hallways, soldiers trudging through snow, bodies being chopped up, flesh being scraped off a skull, and countless other such sequences all in glorious real time. If tedium and banality are what Iskanov was going for he succeeded admirably.

PHILOSOPHY OF A KNIFE is so devoid of any redeeming quality in its current state it barely even warrants discussion. One of the few positive things I can say about it is that I can see a riveting avant-garde horror movie hidden beneath all the baggage. Had he cut out 2/3 of the running time and tightened up all of his individual scenes, this could have been one of the most effective exercises in Hell-On-Earth sensory overload.

Of course, in an introduction which brings new meaning to the word "pontification," Iskanov informs us that this is not a horror movie, though he expects us unsophisticated westerners to think it is. So maybe I'm even wrong about that. Maybe there's NOTHING good to say about this movie.

Watching this movie has forced me to re-assess my opinion of MEN BEHIND THE SUN, which I thought was little more than an exploitive freak show as well. However, in MEN BEHIND THE SUN director T.F. Mou presented the atrocities in a brutally matter-of-fact manner and allowed us to sympathize somewhat with the prisoners. Now I'm thinking that Mou's film is at least somewhat earnest in its depictions of the horrors of Unit 731.

In PHILOSOPHY, Iskanov re-creates the experiments as highly stylized set-pieces that look more like a Nine Inch Nails music video than an attempt to hit home the true horror of these activities. All (and I mean ALL) the prisoners who are tortured are young, good-looking Russian kids with no backstory whatsoever. I wonder how many female prisoners-of-war during World War II had perfect breasts and shaved pubic hair. And while MEN BEHIND THE SUN acknowledged that Russian, European and American prisoners did fall victim to Unit 731, PHILOSOPHY completely ignores the fact that the vast majority of victims were Chinese.

And if what you want is nothing more than blood and guts, even that fails to live up to the hype. The effects (which Iskanov did himself) are amateurish and sloppy. Only a sequence in which a woman's teeth are pulled is even somewhat effective, not because it's well-done, but because pretty much everyone can imagine how much that would hurt. OLDBOY's teeth pulling scene is far more chilling and horrific than this.

This long, boring, dishonest, self-indulgent movie is a major waste of time. I want my four plus hours back.

I am going to say now, as someone who disliked 'The Human Centipede' for the intended purpose and found it bad enough to be funny, you are better off watching that.

The movie is shot most probably on a DSLR in black and white. The conversion into black and white was unbearably Grey with obnoxious 'old film' effects. Overall the filming is very amateur, shaky and melodramatic. While there is a small handful of clever and interesting shots and overlays, most of them look pretentious and try-hard. Think 16 year old girl film project and windows movie maker.

The prisoners are all white females obviously cast from America's next top model, and a couple of Russian men. This is largely historically inaccurate considering in real life most of the prisoners were Chinese or Korean of all ages, not just a bunch of white hipsters. AND FOR GOD'S SAKE WHO THE F**K THOUGHT PUTTING MASCARA ON PRISONERS WAS A GOOD IDEA?

The acting itself was overall tacky and cringey to watch. The Asian nurse was the only decent actress, even then, her face is covered with a medical mask most of the time, and her makeup is far too modern, she has ipod headphones dangling out of her pocket in one scene, which is laughable. The cast of prisoners are healthy, white, middle class, attractive, plump, groomed and moody-teenage looking, this would be fine.. if you know.. they weren't supposed to be starving, suffering and psychologically disturbed war prisoners. It is beyond me why the producer thought he wanted the prisoners to look so prime and polished, I'm astounded to think that anyone with half a brain would think to have actresses with long brushed and shiny hair, perfect makeup (with absolutely no attempt in making them look tired or haggard)and plump curvy figures, cast in a film about some of the most malnourished and tormented prisoners of all time. The Asian male doctor looks like he's just stepped out of a Korean boy band, they could have at the very least styled his hair to look 1940's. Why is he wearing eyeliner?!

The entire cast are unconvincing and substandard actors. As a very squeamish person, i didn't even flinch. The gore was well produced in places, but the actors couldn't carry it. Screams of what was supposed to be agony looked like dodgy orgasms in some sort of soviet bdsm porn. The prisoners are calm and serene being led around. There is no kicking, struggle or fuss, not even the guards restraining them as they lead them to the operating room. They just lay down on the operating table compliantly, which is ridiculous.

There is a rape scene in the film that is just completely ridiculous and had me laughing at how poorly acted it was.

The whole film is poorly written and very historically inaccurate, therefore making it very difficult to believe. There is no way in hell a Japanese war doctor is going to flirt with a prisoner, i felt this was some sort of mockery , and absolutely out of place. I can see the director trying to write in some romance to make the movie ever-so-slightly less dull, but it was just utterly disrespectful to the rape victims of the real unit 713 and to a degree racially insensitive and ignorant of the well documented historic Japanese attitudes to foreigners. Other historic inaccuracies included sedation. The real Unit 713 preformed abortions and vivisection's without anesthetic, painkillers or any sort of sedation, this not only would have been much more interesting to see on screen, but made a world of difference in historical accuracy. Operations were also preformed laughably, doctors removing all sorts of organs like picking tomatoes out of a salad, while patients in pristine makeup look barely phased but let out the occasional girlish scream. Not even a drip of sweat on their faces or their lipstick smudging.

Props used, such as a toy baby are again laughable.

The only positive thing i can comment on is the well made opening credits and mixing of archive footage to trendy music.

The film is a massive waste of time overall, and you're better off gnawing your own appendages for better a quality entertainment and insight into the Japanese war atrociousness.