Controversy[edit]
Though Mou claims he was trying to depict historical accuracy with the film,[1][2] he has been criticized by Hong Kong critics that the film's appearance as an exploitation film negates any educational value involving a historical atrocity, and Japanese critics deemed the film as anti-Japan propaganda.[3]
Because of its graphic content, the film has suffered mass controversy with censors all over the world. It was originally banned in Australia[4] and caused public outcry in Japan to such an extent that director Mou even received threats on his life.[5][2] The film was given several minutes of mandated cuts to be allowed a release in the United Kingdom.[6]
The film garnered further controversy for its use of what Mou claims to be actual autopsy footage of a young boy and also for a scene in which a live cat appears to be thrown into a room to be eaten alive by hundreds of frenzied rats.[7] Although in the 2010 documentary Black Sunshine: Conversations With T.F. Mou, Mou confessed that the cat was tired after participation in the film and got two fish as a reward, that the cat was made wet with honey and theater blood (as opposed to real blood like other scenes as the rat would attack otherwise), and that the rats were licking and eating the honey only.
Reception[edit]
The film was panned for its directionless narrative & insensitivity to historical tragedies. From contemporary reviews, "Lor." of Variety declared the film to be a "lowbrow exploitationer treating a serious subject, Japanese war atrocities." noting that "Explosive material is dramatically potent and could have been handled tastefully, as with Kon Ichikawa's classic films like Fires on the Plain" but "resorts to nauseating sensationalism, with butcher-shop depiction of autopsies on live subjects, a disgusting "decompression" experiment spewing intestines out of a victim and a horrendously realistic scene of a pussycat bloodily mauled by a room full of rats."[8]
