Philosophy of a Knife (2008)

Wonderful Movie

I like movies that are aware of what they are selling... without [any] greater aspirations than to make people laugh and that's it.

if their story seems completely bonkers, almost like a feverish work of fiction, you ain't heard nothing yet.

A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

I am going to say now, as someone who disliked 'The Human Centipede' for the intended purpose and found it bad enough to be funny, you are better off watching that.The movie is shot most probably on a DSLR in black and white. The conversion into black and white was unbearably Grey with obnoxious 'old film' effects. Overall the filming is very amateur, shaky and melodramatic. While there is a small handful of clever and interesting shots and overlays, most of them look pretentious and try-hard. Think 16 year old girl film project and windows movie maker.The prisoners are all white females obviously cast from America's next top model, and a couple of Russian men. This is largely historically inaccurate considering in real life most of the prisoners were Chinese or Korean of all ages, not just a bunch of white hipsters. AND FOR GOD'S SAKE WHO THE F**K THOUGHT PUTTING MASCARA ON PRISONERS WAS A GOOD IDEA? The acting itself was overall tacky and cringey to watch. The Asian nurse was the only decent actress, even then, her face is covered with a medical mask most of the time, and her makeup is far too modern, she has ipod headphones dangling out of her pocket in one scene, which is laughable. The cast of prisoners are healthy, white, middle class, attractive, plump, groomed and moody-teenage looking, this would be fine.. if you know.. they weren't supposed to be starving, suffering and psychologically disturbed war prisoners. It is beyond me why the producer thought he wanted the prisoners to look so prime and polished, I'm astounded to think that anyone with half a brain would think to have actresses with long brushed and shiny hair, perfect makeup (with absolutely no attempt in making them look tired or haggard)and plump curvy figures, cast in a film about some of the most malnourished and tormented prisoners of all time. The Asian male doctor looks like he's just stepped out of a Korean boy band, they could have at the very least styled his hair to look 1940's. Why is he wearing eyeliner?! The entire cast are unconvincing and substandard actors. As a very squeamish person, i didn't even flinch. The gore was well produced in places, but the actors couldn't carry it. Screams of what was supposed to be agony looked like dodgy orgasms in some sort of soviet bdsm porn. The prisoners are calm and serene being led around. There is no kicking, struggle or fuss, not even the guards restraining them as they lead them to the operating room. They just lay down on the operating table compliantly, which is ridiculous. There is a rape scene in the film that is just completely ridiculous and had me laughing at how poorly acted it was.The whole film is poorly written and very historically inaccurate, therefore making it very difficult to believe. There is no way in hell a Japanese war doctor is going to flirt with a prisoner, i felt this was some sort of mockery , and absolutely out of place. I can see the director trying to write in some romance to make the movie ever-so-slightly less dull, but it was just utterly disrespectful to the rape victims of the real unit 713 and to a degree racially insensitive and ignorant of the well documented historic Japanese attitudes to foreigners. Other historic inaccuracies included sedation. The real Unit 713 preformed abortions and vivisection's without anesthetic, painkillers or any sort of sedation, this not only would have been much more interesting to see on screen, but made a world of difference in historical accuracy. Operations were also preformed laughably, doctors removing all sorts of organs like picking tomatoes out of a salad, while patients in pristine makeup look barely phased but let out the occasional girlish scream. Not even a drip of sweat on their faces or their lipstick smudging. Props used, such as a toy baby are again laughable. The only positive thing i can comment on is the well made opening credits and mixing of archive footage to trendy music.The film is a massive waste of time overall, and you're better off gnawing your own appendages for better a quality entertainment and insight into the Japanese war atrociousness.

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.

As soon as I heard about this film I snagged a copy and watched it in all it's atrocious glory! I love Iskanov's work and I knew that he would do an incredible job with this subject.I had seen other films about Unit 731 and had been unimpressed. They always seemed to come off campy or simply lacked the seriousness of the subject. Iskanov's film does the subject justice and then some (but the film is not overdone...all 4-1/2 hours of it).In fact Iskanov captures the true horror of it all by simply reducing it to what it is...torture. Iskanov, although known for his visual sensory overload (in a good way), shows the restraint and control of a world-class director.There aren't a whole lot of films made about the atrocities of Japanese unit 731 and this one is not likely to be topped.Watch this film with caution as it will change your life, if even just slightly.