731 (2025)

Genre: War/Thriller
Director: Zhao Linshan
Cast: Jiang Wu, Wang Zhiwen, Li Naiwen, Sun Qian 
Runtime: 2 hr 6 mins
Rating: M18 (Violence and Disturbing Scenes)
Released By: Shaw Organisation
Official Website: 

Opening Day: 2 October 2025

Synopsis: In 1945, in a desperate attempt to reverse their inevitable defeat, the Japanese Unit 731, which invaded China, secretly conducted inhumane research on biological warfare and extensively captured civilians for live human experimentation in the Pingfang district of Harbin. Vendor Wang Yongzhang and others were forcibly taken to a "special prison." The Japanese military deceived them with the false promise that "cooperating with health checks and epidemic prevention research would earn them freedom," subjecting them to extreme tortures such as frostbite experiments, poison gas tests, and live dissections...

Movie Review:

‘Wang Yongzheng, your story is terrible!’

So goes the final line of the historical thriller ‘731’, and indeed, some may very well feel likewise about Zhao Linshan’s movie.

It is a sombre fact that the Japanese had carried out biochemical experiments on the Chinese during their period of occupation; in particular, at the brink of losing the war, we are told that the Japanese grew desperate and decided to abandon moral and ethical safeguards in a bid to try to gain an upper hand over the Allied forces.

‘Unit 731’ is one such facility in Harbin, run by the sadistic Dr Shiro Ishii (Yasuyuki Hirata). This is where our protagonist Wang is brought to, after being arrested by the Japanese for stealing one of their revolutionary water filters that can apparently turn urine into drinkable water (I kid you not).

There, at the dreadful Unit 731, Wang quickly confesses that he is not the anti-fascist resistance hero Wang Yongzheng, but just someone with a similar surname; to his surprise, the prison official Yoshiko Inamura (Feng Wenjuan) gives him a new lease of life by assigning him to distribute the daily rations of food and apples to his fellow inmates, as well as take up janitorial duties along the facility’s corridors.

That privilege allows Wang to see firsthand the atrocities being committed at the facility, what with all sorts of experiments being conducted on its inmates. It is pretty gruesome stuff we warn you, including ripping the skin off arms, frozen arms being chopped off, gassing, electrocution, organs being cut out and left hanging, and last but not least, plague-infested fleas and rats.

Inspired by his fellow cell mate Du Cunshan (Wang Zhiwen), Wang musters his courage to devise a plan to break out his fellow inmates during the celebration of the Yamakasa Festival. Without giving away too much, let’s just say that it doesn’t go well for Wang, Du as well as their other cellmates Sun Mingliang (Du Ziye) and Gu Boxuan (Li Naiwen); even so, Wang’s actions turn him into an unexpected hero amongst his fellow inmates, so much so that he eventually lives up to the name of Wang Yongzheng.

If it isn’t obvious, Wang is a fictional character, created by Zhao and his co-writer Liu Heng for the sake of establishing a narrative arc for their movie. It is fortunate that they were able to convince veteran actor Jiang Wu to headline the movie, because he brings more gravitas than the role in fact deserves; like he did in ‘Let the Bullets Fly’, Jiang proves adept at juggling both comedy and pathos, and injects just the right dose of both to avoid turning Wang into a caricature.

The same however cannot be said of the movie, which often struggles to find the right tone. Is it meant to be a tragicomedy? Or a sober reminder of one of the darkest periods of the Japanese aggression? Perhaps in order not to come off too similar with other such historical epics, ‘731’ avoids being a straightforward portrayal but rather a stylised account of what happened. And perhaps because it had to appease the censors, Zhao’s true vision had ended up being diluted and diminished into something that never quite manages to find the right chord.

And that is ultimately what bedevils ‘731’, which as important as its subject matter is, comes off too artificial, embellished and trivial to make much of an impression. It is also not biting enough to be satire, and leans at times too heavily on gratuitous scenes of gore and violence in order to shock and awe. ‘731’ ends up being a Frankenstein of a movie, and frankly a frustrating watch that isn’t as terrible as some have proclaimed it to be, but nowhere near the blockbuster it promised to deliver.

Movie Rating:

(A stylised account of one of the darkest chapters of the Japanese aggression, '731' doesn't do justice to history nor to the artistic license that director Zhao Linshan hopes his audience will extend to this historical drama) 

Review by Gabriel Chong