By the beginning of 1945 Japan are losing their grip in the war, by February 1945 they take extreme measures and push forward their bacterial warfare experiments. Operation Cheery Blossoms commences in secrecy. The Japanese Imperial army carry out these experiments in a compound in Northeast China, the name of the Unit, the 731! They conduct various horrific experiments on thousands of prisoners of war, the Russians, the Koreans, and of course the Chinese.
Wang Yongzhang (Wu Jiang) is arrested and shipped to the compound by train with thousands of others, but is he who he says he is? Could he be the great Wang ZIyang the anti-Japanese hero, is he there to save them all?
Wu Jiang is central to all that is happening in this film, he is the heart and the hope from the start to the finish of the film. From his arrest at the start, we follow his character Wang on the train, to arriving at the compound, to the separation of men, women and children in the yard of the compound. To his new job at handing out the food to the cells, more importantly to the faith he has to find a way to escape their captures and the horrific experiments that happen below the prisoner’s cells, in the depths of the compound. We rarely see the terrible things that happen, only in a few scenes are these shown, only when it matters to the story. This I find is intentional to not take you out of the film and what it is about, but to give you the viewer hope/ faith as well. This is why I think that there are lighter comedic scenes, if it was just a gore fest of the horrors below. I for one would be turned off to watching this film. The numbers and files were destroyed by the Japanese when they retreated; there is no record to the exact numbers that they exposed to these experiments. However, 4500 files were discovered, it is estimated into millions of poor souls that were killed within this compound by the 731. This is something that we should never forget, as much as this film is just a film the time in history, did happen, human life meant nothing, as they revered to their prisoners as LOGS! What they did was barbaric and inhuman, that should never be forgotten.
I think the film does an exceptional job of honouring those that lost their lives of balancing this time in history, it is from the prisoners’ perspective that the narrative plays out. Yes Wu Jiang is the heart, but we get to know other prisoners and their fight for life, their faith and their hope. Writer/Director Linshan Zhao took on a difficult subject to put into a film, but I think he has done a compelling job with it.
