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Chinese film 731, on Japan’s WWII germ warfare unit, sets box-office record in China
The Straits Times
|September 22, 2025
Chinese film 731, which depicts Japanese germ warfare during World War II, set a first-day box-office record among the war films released in China in 2025.
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The film, also known as Evil Unbound, dramatises the Japanese military research base Unit 731 in northeastern China that was notorious for live human experiments.
731 took in more than 345 million yuan (S$62 million) when it premiered on Sept 18, according to ticketing platform Maoyan. The film has since grossed more than 1.1 billion yuan as at Sept 21.
Sept 18 coincided with the 94th anniversary of the Mukden Incident in 1931, which marked the start of Japan’s invasion of Manchuria in China’s northeast, and which Beijing sees as the start of World War II.
The depiction in 731 risks inflaming tensions between China and Japan, as Beijing seeks to highlight Tokyo’s wartime actions and what it calls a lack of accountability.
This story is from the September 22, 2025 edition of The Straits Times.
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