Mong and Sim Dai (Chingmy Yau, Veronica Yip) survive rape, torture, and worse as the Japanese take over China, and sharp lines divide patriots and collaborators. The anti-Jap message is pounded in with well-placed epithets, and still more rape and torture. A kind of poorman's Man Behind the Sun, this has scenes of you won't easily forget: one Chinese resister has bricks loaded on his legs until they buckle backwards, and then his stomach is loaded with water, and lanced. The fact that this stuff actually happened doesn't necessarily mean I want to see it.

(2/4)



[Reviewed by Steve Spinali]