Chinese movie Evil Unbound has lessons for the world

The world knows about the Nazi atrocities during World War II. Many books have been written and a number of films have been made. Therefore, the world is aware of it. But the world still knows very less about the similar atrocities committed at the same time. That part of world history has been almost hidden, and highlighting it still is a revelation for many people. Yes, I am talking about the atrocities committed by the Japanese fascists on Chinese, Korean, Soviet and people from other parts of Asia during the war. Some parts of this history are intentionally hidden, some are overshadowed, and some are yet to be explored.

Recently released Chinese movie 731, also known as Evil Unbound, is a new attempt to uncover almost hidden or at least less discussed part of world history. As a curious student of world history, how can I not watch that movie! Even the short clips of the movie posted on social media have made my heart cold. I was not sure whether I would be able to cope with all terrible scenes. I guess other audiences in the theatre were wondering the same.

The movie is based on the bio-labs of the Japanese militarist government in Chinese land, operated secretly to not only research bio-weapons but also to research human physiology from mid-1930 to 1945. The Japanese elite class, with a strong desire to rule over the world, was seeking all possible ways to build weapons better than any other global power. For them, science was an instrument that could fulfill their desire, and therefore Japanese scientists were mobilized to develop weapons that guaranteed the inevitability of the Japanese empire.

Bio-labs in Northern China were such centers where scientific experiments were done to find how human beings could be killed. Japanese scientist Shiro Ishii was the leader of that mission, known as the Operation Cherry Blossoms. In the name of "Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere", the Japanese army and scientists used thousands of ordinary people from China, Korea and the Soviet Union for scientific research, sending them to their deaths.

The movie Evil Unbound tells the story of the people who were in those laboratories, imprisoned to be the raw materials for scientific research, whom the Japanese scientists sarcastically called "logs". In fact, the term "logs" is symbolic because those arrested people are no more than logs for the Japanese, as they are burned down after they are used for scientific experiments. Their bodies are used to test human perseverance in high and low temperatures, to study internal and external body parts, reactions of human bodies in different extreme cases, the development of fetuses, etc. Those innocent people were inhumanely and brutally tortured and finally killed to be burned by the blind workers after Japanese scientists got what they wanted. Fleas and rats infected with plague are tested on those people, causing their death.

The movie is about a man (the main character Wang Yongzhang) who has a dream of doing peppercorn business in Europe and becoming rich. He is arrested for stealing a special filter that can turn the dirtiest water into the purest from the Japanese quarter. Along with other inmates, he's also taken to the Japanese laboratory in northern China. Leaving an eight-month pregnant wife alone at home isn't easy. So, he keeps on seeking ways to escape. Because of his mastery of the Japanese language, he's selected as a janitor at the prison. As a janitor, he discovers that the place is not only an ordinary prison, but many abnormal atrocities are committed there for something he hardly understands.

Every time, a group of inmates is taken away by the Japanese army and told they are free. After solitary confinement, these people go happily but fall into the death trap. They never return home; rather they are used for scientific experiments that end with death. This knowledge changes Wang Yonzhang's mind and he plans to break out of the prison with the other inmates. It isn't easy to escape, as one of the dying characters says, how can one escape from a place where guns are pointed everywhere? Nevertheless, Wang Yongzhang with determination to erase his image as a traitor to "Wang Zhiyan", an anti-Japanese fighter, dares to rebel against the atrocities. Though the rebel fails, his bravery and courage transform him into Wang Zhiyan.

The meaning of self-identity of a person has been well-portrayed in the movie, where all inmates shout their names whenever they get a chance, with the hope that one who returns from prison could remember him or her. But for the Japanese army, all human bodies are no more than numbers. For the Japanese, they don't own any peculiar identity and names. Science and technology is the greatest achievement of humankind. It has comforted human life in uncountable ways. But when it falls into the hands of evil forces, how destructive it can be! The world has a very bad experience of the US dropping atom bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and the devastating wars going on in the world today. Scientific research definitely benefits humankind unless it is misused by destructive forces. Japan as a fascist force during the WWII had weaponized the scientific achievements and used them for atrocities. The Japanese military then committed such inhuman crimes against Chinese, Korean, Soviet, and other East Asian people that can be hardly be imagined in a civilized world.

Japan lost the war in 1945, and subsequently, the labs were destroyed. But harder episode is that the facts were kept hidden until 1995. The US and Japanese scientists had a deal not to expose the labs and atrocities, grant amnesties to Japanese scientists and, in return, the US was provided the reports of those experiments. How can two so-called civilized countries make such a deal at the expense of innocent blood?

During the COVID-19 period, news reports about Unit 731, Japanese secret bio-weapon labs, and their connection with the US lab in Detroit were in discussion. Though the Operation Cherry Blossoms failed eight decades ago, but the legacy of those inhuman atrocities, the history of fascist oppression, and dark memories of unimaginable cruelty are yet not erased.

The movie Evil Unbound demands the answers to many unanswered questions left hidden by history. It has shed light on the intentionally hidden chapter of world history. For many audiences, it was even harder to look at the screen to see the acts of atrocities, how hard it must have been for those who faced it!

The movie ends, but the sadness remains for a long time. Moreover, questions on that chapter of history and curiosity about the future provoke the heart. Science today has advanced much than in the time of WWII. What would happen if today's science and technologies fell into the hands of fascists?

History cannot be hidden for long, no matter how much one attempts to. The movie Evil Unbound has dug the history out and warned the world.

Niraj Lawoju is a Nepalese student studying at the Sichuan University's School of International Studies. The views don't necessarily reflect those of China Daily.

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