Chinese WWII film on unit 731 sparks tension with Japan
Evil Unbound, a new Chinese film portraying Japan’s wartime germ warfare, broke first-day box office records for war films released in China this year, amid Beijing’s efforts to spotlight Tokyo’s World War Two atrocities.
The movie dramatizes Unit 731, the Japanese military research facility in northeast China infamous for live human experiments. According to ticketing platform Maoyan, Evil Unbound earned over 345 million yuan ($48.5 million) on Thursday, News.Az reports, citing Reuters.
Chinese state media says Unit 731 carried out experiments on about 3,000 Chinese, Korean, Russian, and Mongolian prisoners between the mid-1930s and 1945, testing biological weapons such as anthrax and plague bombs. None of the victims survived.
Japan’s Foreign Ministry did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba previously told parliament that verifying Unit 731’s actions was difficult because “the means to confirm the facts have been lost with history,” Japanese media reported.
The Global Times, citing Zhang Peng, an associate professor at Nanjing Normal University, said the film “exposes wartime atrocities long hidden in some countries” and strengthens China’s campaign for “historical justice.”
The storyline follows a fictional Chinese prisoner, Wang Yongzhan, depicted as a resistance hero leading fellow captives in an escape. Graphic scenes show torture, laboratories, and a crematorium.
The film will be released in the United States, Australia, Singapore, and South Korea, but not in Japan. Ahead of its debut, the Japanese embassy in Beijing warned nationals to remain “vigilant against anti-Japanese sentiment” linked to World War Two commemorations.
China has rolled out at least four WWII films this year, covering events from the 1937 Nanjing Massacre to the 1942 sinking of the Lisbon Maru, coinciding with the 80th anniversary of the war’s end and marked by a major military parade.
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