Flawed but necessary look at Japan's war atrocities

Chinese film 731, based on World War II events, is directed by Zhao Linshan and stars Jiang Wu

- John Lui Senior Film Correspondent

Set in early 1945 as Japanese forces retreat across the Pacific, 731 dramatises one of World War II's darkest chapters.

The Empire's leaders, desperate for a war-winning weapon, conduct horrific biological experiments in facilities across China, infecting human test subjects with anthrax, bubonic plague, cholera, tuberculosis and typhoid. Chinese con man Wang Yongzhang (Jiang Wu) finds himself imprisoned at Unit 731, the Harbin facility that would become synonymous with the barbaric research led by Dr Shiro Ishii (Yasuyuki Hirata). Realising that every prisoner faces a death sentence, Wang plots his escape from this nightmare.

For Chinese audiences, Unit 731 holds comparable significance to Auschwitz or Treblinka for Jews, which explains the substantial body of films, books and documentaries dedicated to these atrocities.