Philosophy of a Knife (2008)

I'm not really sure where to begin with this film. On the one hand, I feel like the story of Unit 731 and the horrors that happened there is a story that needs to be told, so I feel that this film has some merit if only because it raises awareness about a horrific point in history that seems to get glossed over all too often. That being said, the subject matter could have been handled much better. This movie just isn't really that good, nor is it terribly realistic. For some reason, all the victims in the film appear to be Russian despite the fact that historically, the vast majority of the victims of 731's experiments were Chinese. On top of that, all the victims look like super models, complete with perfect eye make-up and neatly waxed pubic hair. They look like they belong on the set of a fashion shoot rather than a POW camp. Historically, the staff of Unit 731 were highly trained scientists and medical professionals, however, in this film, "surgeries" are portrayed with the doctors just hacking and jabbing away haphazardly with blood unrealistically spurting in every direction. I also found myself wondering how many of the "experiments" portrayed in the film actually took place. While the human experimentation of 731 was no doubt cruel and inhumane, I was under the impression that the experiments at least had some medical and scientific reasoning behind them, whereas many of the experiments portrayed in Philosophy of a Knife just seemed totally pointless, not to mention highly unrealistic. Inserting a cockroach into the vagina, tearing off the victim's face, and then having the cockroach come out her mouth? Give me a break. And then, of course, there's the length of the film. 4 hours? Really? Editing seems to be a foreign concept to the director. The torture scenes just drag on and on and on, to the point where I found myself becoming desensitized and, frankly, bored, despite the graphic nature of the scenes. I literally caught myself falling asleep halfway through the second half of the film. The film could have easily been half the length. I did like the fact that the film attempted to humanize a couple of the Japanese staff characters, showing them grappling with feeling sympathy for the victims while still being brainwashed into believing that they were acting for the greater good of their country. I found that aspect of the film very interesting. All in all, Philosophy of a Knife is mostly just a bad, low-budget, poorly edited and acted gorefest that tries pretentiously to pass itself off as an artistic and realistic portrayal of historical events. It has a few redeeming qualities, but if you're interested in learning about Unit 731, you'd be better off just reading the Wikipedia page on it and saving yourself 4 hours.

Philosophy of a Knife is a pretty rare genre, I'd say. Or I should say it's the first "documentary" where they showed the true nature of the topic. Usually when you watch a documentary of any topics that are gruesome or graphic(for instance, about serial killers), they never show you the actual footage or portray what really happened. Before this film, I really never heard of Unit 731, so I did a little research before watching this feature. And when I read it, I couldn't believe it; it was one of the most gruesome acts done by humans in the history of mankind. So I guess it was one of those stories they hid so the public won't know about the horrific truth about Unit 731. But Andrey Iskanov chose to exploit on this topic and tell the audience the truth about Unit 731. What I really liked about this film is that it was part documentary and part feature. Instead of sugarcoating the truth, this movie portrays the true horrific nature of Unit 731. This movie, I'd say, can be viewed with different intentions. By that I mean, you can watch this as a documentary or you can watch this as a gore film. I'm assuming there will be mixed audiences for this film since it's not just straight up gore and it's not straight up documentary either. This movie is quite unique and never seen such like it before. Although I thought this movie was a tad bit long(took me 2 days to finish it), it still was one of the greatest documentary films ever made. Andrey Iskanov, I salute as the best documentary film director.p.s. little warning about the film: if you're the type of person who can't stand extreme gore or just can't watch them, I'd say try to avoid this one. Unless you're willing to go through the "suffering" of watching this film.

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.

Just my opinions: First let me say I rate this film an 8.5 out of 10. Philosophy of a Knife is a film like no other. It has been said by other reviewers that it is like a giant music video. In some ways it is. That isn't a bad thing at all. Somebody really needs to contact Nine Inch Nails to get Andrey to do a video for them. The closest film I could even compare this to was the film "Goodbye Uncle Tom" (from the makers of Mondo Cane) only because it was part documentary, part reenactment, and part exploitation. Although Andrey probably didn't intend for this to be an modern day exploitation flick, it pretty much is. Although many people who made exploitation films probably weren't going for that at the time that they made their films. I found that the best way to watch this film is in 30 to 45 minute increments. I will admit at times it does drag on, but when you go away and come back it seems new, exciting, and fresh all over again. When I first heard rumors that the film might be cut down from 4 hours, I was passionate about letting the film remain in it's 4 hour entirety. Now after watching, I think it could have been knocked down to 3 and maybe even 2 hours. It would make it easier to recommend to people, because it takes quite a bit of dedication to get through the film. I don't have a short attention span, but let's just say Andrey has a exceptionally long attention span. Every scene should remain in the film, but many of the scenes contain many redundant shots. In some cases, the length of certain gore scenes make it lose it some of it's potency. However, I must say, the EFFECTS in this film are pretty much outstanding. Although, I wasn't a fan of the "old vintage film" effect used throughout the entire film (with the little lines and stuff). It wouldn't have been that big of deal if the effect wasn't still used on still-shots of photos or in the scenes with modern footage. It even used the effect on top of already "old vintage footage", making it "double vintage footage". I wish they had interviewed more people to give their opinions and views on Unit 731. For a documentary it's always nice to get many perspectives. Despite, the flaws I listed, this film is one of the best independent films to come out in years. The music done by Alexander Shevchenko in the film is top notch and can stand on it's own. It's good to buy the 2 Disc Special Edition so you can have all the music. Some of the most powerful scenes in my opinion were the "frost bite testing" when the guy is made to walk, and the scene towards the end with the Japanese solider letting the girl go. (very beautiful scene). It's a visual masterpiece. If you took all the best parts of this film, it would still be longer and better than all the "extreme" movies nowadays. If "extreme" was a genre, this would be one of it's crown jewels.