I was a little surprised to find this title for rent at my local video store. Although they do have a lot of off-beat titles, I rarely see DVDs by Unearthed Films there, so this was kind of a treat. I thought a good new horror movie would be cool to check out. I have seen other review sites write about it and Xploited Cinema has it on their home page, so it must be worth checking out.

PHILOSOPHY OF A KNIFE was directed by Andrey Iskanov who spent roughly the last 4 years on this project to its ultimate realization. According to IMDB, he was virtually a one-man band on this project, not only as director, but as writer, actor, producer, cinematographer, film editor, production designer, special effects make-up, sound effects designer, special effects, stunt coordinator, and still photographer.

I usually don’t read the back covers because it spoils the show. I figure, I have it, I might as well be as surprised as I can get. To preface, for a moment, I have not see director's Andrey Iskanov's previous works, nor was I familiar with the events that this film is about. So, once I put it in, there was an introduction with the director, which took about 5 minutes for them to say this was based on real events.

What I eventually found myself watching was not a horror movie at all, but a re-enactment of the events that took place in Japan during World War II in a place notoriously known as Unit 731. This was where medical experiements on human beings were being done military style. That is to say, humans were subject to various kinds of torture to discover thresholds of pain, consciousness, life, death, and what distances of blood shoots out from various major arteries.

While this is a bold, in your face presentation, another treat that was unexpected was that the film would go on like this for over 4 hours! So below are the Pros, Cons and Summary.

 

PROS: This is a very ambitious film, in its passion, creativity and length. It succeeds on many levels where it is completely jarring to watch, but, like any car accident, it’s hard to look away, hard to watch. The scenes are nightmarishly reminscent of any Nazi concentration camp. The whole idea is taken from the perspective of a nurse (played by Manoush) who is recording the data of the experiements, but at the same time has this loathing guilt within her about what is happening. I say idea because it’s not a story, but re-enactments of what the director thought might have happened and what it might have been like. This is all interspersed with actual photos from the Unit, as well as a testomonial from former doctor and military translator, Anatoly Protasov, who provides the glue to all the scenes you will be privy to. It was probably a wise move on the director's part not to give any names to the people as they are seen primarily from the perspective of the nurse, who was not to have any attachment to the people. So they were just subjects with numbers. So the actors are then named "man in the radiation" and that sort of thing. So keeping them as sort of blank faces keeps it universally human. 

There is much blood and just as many guts. Again, it is quite disturbing to see some of this, but I think hearing about what they were testing for, and how they were going about it made the anticipation scarier than actually watching it. I will not ruin the surprise for you by telling you some of the experiments as that is the bulk of the film, but just know that that they are some of the cruelest things you would want to inflict on a living person.

CONS: The biggest problem I had with the film was its length. Some, I have read, felt it went by quickly. I must say here, that the film is very engaging and had me hooked throughout. But it was at a cost. To me, the 4 hour length eventually proved a disservice as I found myself dissociating with the mental and physical agony of the victims and started paying attention to the details surrounding the gore, as well as the filmmaking itself. This led me to see that some scenes played out like a music video (ala Nine Inch Nails ‘Closer’) where there are stop-motion photography, quick editing, minimal dialogue (throughout the film) and all the mutilations were done in extreme close-ups where you really did not know what body part you were looking at, as it all seemed to mesh into each other. So, at the risk of sounding like some sort of psycho, I can imagine the doctors also being dissociated from the screaming and pain of the victims and only just “doing their job”. Because the experiment scenes ran on at lengths, this I felt was where the 4-hour film could have been cut down as it starts to be “what will they do next” until eventually you “get it”. That is to say, ok, these guys were devoid of all emotion and doing crazy shit. With the lack of story and minimal documentary thread, it just became a torture show.

SUMMARY: In all, the film is well executed, even at the cost of removing your attention of the cruelty to other details of the film. The video is clean and soft in black and white, while the acting is believable and the history behind Unit 731 is quite disturbing and interesting. I definitely recommend it for viewing, but not without its warnings. This is not your gore-fest, nor is it a documentary, but somewhere in the middle. It does not completely pull off a documentary because there is an exploitive nature to it, but that is all in the name of art. The film appeared to be relatively low-budget and so it was handled professionally to compensate for this by coming up with creative solutions in how to handle all the special effects. The lack of story is not especially off-putting, but there some lack of pacing given the length of the film.

There were some moments where the special effects were not as well executed as other scenes and sometimes the digital effects were more obvious than they should be. But ultimately, the film succeeds in what it sets out to do, and that is to get your attention and awareness of what has occurred in Unit 731. This is nothing Hollywood would dare try, so its a unique experience, no matter how brutal the film. This wont be a film I will want to watch over and over again, and I am not sure I would watch it a second time. Maybe with a different kind of company I would consider it. In all, it is challenging viewing that I offer you to challenge your own stamina and courage.

This DVD is offered in 2 varieties: The standard version which is the film itself and some special features, and a 2-disc limited edition of only 3,000 pieces.