Apparently based on declassified documents from WW2, thisjaw-dropper dramatizes the atrocities of Manchu Squadron 731, a top-secret Japanese plan to develop bacteriological weapons. General Ishii presides over the carnage, which was responsible for the deaths of over three-thousand Chinese, Koreans, and Vietnamese guinea pigs. As researchers near implementation of their plague missiles, the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki seal their fate, and the project is brushed into one of the darker corners of 20th century history. Among the nastiness: one man's arms are plunged into liquid nitrogen and broken like china; a child is smothered in the snow, and then his mother becomes the victim of a frostbite experiment in which the flesh of her forearms are rolled back like chicken skin; and they operate on a pre-pubescent child -- while he's alive -- for his pristine heart and liver. The most disturbing scenes involve real animals. A living cat is ripped apart by a sea of lab mice; then the mice are dowsed with gasoline, set afire, and become a mass of scampering torches. Do you catch a moral irony here or is it just me?

(2.5/4)



[Reviewed by Steve Spinali]