SoTrumpBelieve Must See Movie...

Supelice Dreadfully Boring

InformationRap This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

Jonah Abbott There's no way I can possibly love it entirely but I just think its ridiculously bad, but enjoyable at the same time.

Krasnaya_Polyana The atrocities described are horrific, but they are told by only 14 soldiers who spent 11 years in Soviet and Chinese prison camps before "confessing" to their war crimes. I know that people behave atrociously during war, but I was skeptical of these particular accounts from the beginning of the film.There are only 14 men, who can't possibly be representative of the entire Japanese army. And even though they seem to believe their own stories, the stories are too well rehearsed. These 14 men all confessed after spending 11 years in prison camps. Go to The Innocence Project and read about false confessions. They happen more often and more easily than we'd like to think. Also, there are no accounts of soldiers who DID NOT spend any time in Chinese prison camps. These soldiers were singing Internationale when they got off the boat from prison camp. The footage and description of the Chinese prison camp SCREAMED propaganda. The civil-warring Chinese were brutal even with each other, so it's totally incredible that they would have been saints to the Japanese prisoners.It's unfortunate because I know that war is evil and that soldiers do commit atrocities. I think the world needs to see and acknowledge the evil. I desperately want that message to get out. But truth should always be paramount to propaganda, especially in a "documentary."

kobaincito The film is excellent in making its point. The documentary arrangement is spotless, and the color gimmick is tolerable. In fact, for such a piece of propaganda, it is a good documentary. This nonetheless does not take away the fact that for a historian, or anyone interested in world history untainted by American revisionism, the film is of a heavy bias. Sadly, not a Japanese bias but rather a North American bias. There is no background to the traditional conflicts between China and Japan, no mention of the detrimental effects of Western (UK and USA)military pressures to open their markets or most importantly the pressure of American imperialism (Hawaii, Philipines, misc naval bases) upon Japan, in fact the film is so biased that the Japanese view of the Rape of Nanking is described thus: "to them it is not an invasion, but a liberation". Now, even if it was brutal, and accepting it was an invasion, why isn't there mention of the presence of Britain in China, the country it was being "liberated" from. There is even one ridiculous mention of "the great depression which originated after the market crash in NY 1929", it makes you wonder what kind of history degree is needed to make a documentary. The film even manages to make it seem like American and British control of CHina was a positive thing but Japanese control a bad thing. I mean, if i knew just a tad less of the actual history, i would have knelt right then and there and said the pledge of allegiance. Once again, well done, but, not truthful, real or accurate. Veredict: PROPAGANDA

rufasff This documentary, still seen by few, will hopefully be more widely distributed as years go by. The usual war dynamics are here; men brutalized by a brutal military machine lose their humanity.Listening to these old men tell the stories; however, puts it in an powerful context. Recommended, nine out of ten.

psteier Various Japanese who served as enlisted men or low ranking officers in the Imperial Army in China and Manchuria and were later put in forced labor camps in the Soviet Union and then in Red China discuss the atrocities against civilians that they participated in.At least some of the men have already published their experiences in Japan. They are usually calm and straightforward in their presentations.The main interest is that this is seeming the only time that this sort of material has been filmed.