Laboratory of the Devil (1992)

LABORATORY OF THE DEVIL is basically just a re-hashed and more exploitative re-telling of the original MEN BEHIND THE SUN FILM - obviously created to cash-in on that films success while putting forth a minimum of originality. That's not to say that I hated the film - on the contrary, I found it relatively enjoyable, it's just nothing you haven't seen if you've seen the original.In LABORATORY OF THE DEVIL, we get the same "historic" content of the Japanese using mainly Chinese, Koreans, and Russians as guinea-pigs for chemical warfare during WWII. The main difference between this film and MEN BEHIND THE SUN, is that it's told from the point-of-view of a soldier who is forced to work in the camps and we see his obvious guilt and disagreement with the atrocities portrayed. There's also a romantic side-plot regarding the fiancée he left at home during the war...Those that hate this film are justified. The acting is often wooden, the English dubbing (as there's no subtitle option) is laughable, there are a few moments of "humor" injected into the film that are completely unnecessary, etc...As to the good points, though the film is every bit as exploitive as MBTS (if not moreso...), the general information on Unit 731 is still portrayed and is relatively accurate. For those interested in this one only for the gore/torture scenes - they're in this one as well. A couple of real autopsy scenes (one "live" one that looks suspectly authentic) and a few of the original tortures from MBTS are recreated in this film. Basically, LABORATORY OF THE DEVIL treads no new ground that wasn't already handled better in MEN, but if you enjoyed the first one and haven't seen it in a while, give this one a look and you may dig it. I definitely DO NOT recommend watching the original and then watching this one back-to-back - it's essentially much like watching the same film twice and I'm sure will be tedious to the viewer. But on it's own merits, LABORATORY is a relatively decent "historical-exploiter" that may be of interest to fans of the original film...7/10

I honestly don't understand how someone could like Men Behind the Sun but not like this film. Although inferior in some ways, it is extremely devastating. We are treated to brutal extended autopsy, Arms being stripped of flesh,an autopsy on a living guy that looks suspiciously real(they remove his heart as it beats and when they cut him open it bleeds for real, exuding out of the fat and tissue layers)decapitation, dismemberment and more. I have read reviews for Guinea Pig:devils experiment wherein the reviewer states that he believed it to be real snuff, come on now.This flick has more realistic slaughter than the first Guinea Pig. This film uses real corpses for all the effects and the living autopsy scene is brutal. the only way i figure they did it without actually killing a guy is if they filmed a heart surgery or cleverly slaughtered a pig disguising it as a human. Don't believe the bad reviews. This movie is sick and deserves more credit.

He nailed this movie right on the head...I agree with everything he says. I found this movie at the Cleveland Public Library's audiovisual department,and being a lover of foreign horror films,I had to see it. I wound up fast-forwarding past all the talking and watching the nasty bits,which are laughable beyond belief. Of course,if you're not a nutcase like me,this movie may sicken you,but the special effects aren't quite special enough to even do that...

"Man Behind the Sun 2" aka "Camp 731: Laboratory of the Devil" is one of the most worthless films I have ever had the displeasure of seeing. Godfrey Ho (who is incorrectly listed as being an alias for T.F. Mous) managed to take Mous' disturbingly realistic film (which was originally intended to be a documentary and ended up falling somewhere in between docudrama and exploitation stomach turner) and completely flush out every element that made "Man Behind the Sun" so hard to view.What's worse is that Ho doesn't even make a weak attempt at a plot. Instead he literally copies Mous' work word for word only stopping to pump up the amount of blood, torn flesh, innards, and severed limbs. Ho never treats his victims with honor, rather he goes out of his way to completely exploit the unwatchable torture and mass executions these innocent prisoners of war endured.Though, the most grueling ordeal is having to sit through a film that is based on real documentations of Camp 731, which was set up in Harbin, China by the Japanese during World War II. Inside Camp 731's Nazi-like interiorcaptured Chinese, Koreans, and Russians were subjected to inhuman biological warfare testing. In the end out of 3,000 men, women, children, and infant prisoners not one was left alive and some 200,000 more Chinese died from neighboring areas when the camp was imploded and the Black Plague (which was being experimented with) was unleashed.Godfrey Ho should live in shame.Zero Star Rating out of ****