STAY AWAY FROM THIS FILM! What can I say, there are so many things wrong with it, for starters its 4.5 hours long, half of it maybe even more is completely pointless just boring shots of different angles with no talking Sound effects, I don't care what they use but my god THEY USED THE SAME SOUND EFFECT OVER AND OVER again for when bodies were flopped around and when people jumped and landed, it was the same sound over and over again and it was a sound that I used for cheap homemade films almost a decade ago, trust me this makes the experience feel so cheap.The narration, the narration was extremely annoying because about half of what the narrator was saying I couldn't understand or hear, either because the music background and repeated sound effects were too loud or his voice was just too low at times, the quality of the narration changes randomly too which also makes it even harder to hear.Im pretty sure that a lot of the torture they showed in this film wasn't true, like making the prisoners have sex with each other? or the cockroach thing that was retarded.The ONLY thing that makes this film good is the very convincing experiments they were well done and looked very real. But thats the problem Im not looking to watch disgusting things when everything else is pure garbage, I wanted to watch a good doc that explained very well the history of what happened, they might of explained it but still all the things that are wrong with this film make it to crappy and poor to even pay attention.

The small portions of this movie that have any merit, mostly the archival footage which is in some cases quite well applied, are over shadowed by a number of glaring flaws. The narrator blatantly overlooks other widespread abuses and atrocities committed by the whole of the Japanese military, instead claiming that any injustices were simply in response to pressures from the conflict with Russia. To try and whitewash Unit 731's role as a defencive measure is historically inaccurate, and since the Philosophy of a Knife claims to be a sober look at historical events, it fails on that level. I would say while there are few other movies that focus primarily on Imperial Japan's forays into chemical and biological warfare, this one does not ear points for filling a niche void.

I'm rarely moved to comment on movies and books because others have generally already expressed everything I have to say. No need to repeat.However, this movie is so appallingly bad that it deserves every terrible review we can collectively muster.As a documentary, it fails. Too many inaccuracies, too much left out, too many things left unexplained. The man whose interview answers are interspersed throughout was not directly involved in any of it and had nothing new to contribute. The narration, delivered in all its monotone glory, is insipid and adds no insight. Of course, despite purporting to convey a true story, it's not billed as a documentary so I suppose you could forgive the faults. But seriously, this is laughably inaccurate.As a horror film, it fails. Mostly because it's too long by at least 2 hours, has no momentum and is, frankly, boring. Yes, the experimentation scenes are graphic. But there are only a handful of them – maybe one every 20 minutes? - so this can't even qualify as a gore fest. Besides, the effects are amateurish at best, and no self-respecting horror fan would be impressed. The infamous tooth-pulling scene is shockingly fake. There are numerous lengthy scenes of prisoners sitting around waiting – is Iskanov trying to create suspense? I have this bad habit of doggedly finishing a book or a movie I really don't like or actively loathe, just because I hate leaving something unfinished. I don't usually regret this because it's a conscious decision and I feel I have a better idea of the work as a whole if I actually finish watching or reading it. I regret wasting my time with this movie.It was some of the most self-indulgent dreck I've ever come across. Iskanov's repetitive use of silent snow-falling-on-gray-building scenes were maddening. I started timing them, and they ranged from about 2 to 6 minutes, making them ideal for bathroom breaks, walking the dog or fixing a sandwich. If you wanted to skip over the Russian guy's interview scenes too, you'd have enough time for a solid power nap.Actually, don't bother with it at all. Then you don't have to mess with fast forwarding and all that.

The past reviewer was spot on, so much unnecessary footage. If you're going to pretend that this is an honest interpretation of what actually happened then keep the ratio of snow-white-perfectly-proportioned-westerner victims in check compared to the normal domestic test subjects who were vastly underrepresented in this picture. They claim that they weren't trying to demonize the Japanese in that incredibly pretentious let-me-tell-you-how-to-interpret-this-movie segment at the beginning, but It sure seemed like the majority of horrors of war were apportioned to one side. War is dirty, war is nasty, war is savage. The Japanese did many evil things, and had many evil things done to them by Westerners, a little balance would be nice.