SmugKitZine Tied for the best movie I have ever seen

Roy Hart If you're interested in the topic at hand, you should just watch it and judge yourself because the reviews have gone very biased by people that didn't even watch it and just hate (or love) the creator. I liked it, it was well written, narrated, and directed and it was about a topic that interests me.

Kamila Bell This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

Staci Frederick Blistering performances.

James McNally I saw this film at the 2001 Toronto International Film Festival.The film was almost three hours long, but compelling all the way through. This documentary features the confessions of 14 Japanese soldiers, detailing their atrocities against the Chinese in the war that Japan waged for most of the thirties and forties. At times hard to listen to, it was nonetheless an exercise in bravery for these men to speak out when the overwhelming majority of soldiers did not. A deeply difficult film to get made and shown in Japan. (8/10)

Pittwater This is a MUST SEE. Japanese director Minoru Matsui should be praised for releasing a 'confessions of ex-WW2 Japanese soldiers'. This is a very sensitive issue in Japan today due to their many living in denial of their crimes. These ex-soldiers confessed of their indiscriminate murders, rapes, plunders, tortures and so on. Basically the most horrific of crimes against humanity unimaginable. You have to see this to believe it. The average Japanese soldier would make Joseph Mengele look like Mother Theresa. The average Japanese soldier would make any Nazi T4 personnel look like pussycats. These soldiers have contributed to the most sickenning part of mankind's history. This documentary should be made compulsory viewing for all students of modern history and warfare. In the way it was presented, I can guarantee that there is no "off-putting" part as suggested by another reviewer in his "perceived bias of the victim nation's propaganda". HELLO... it was made by Japanese!!! Duh. There's simply no excuse for what these men did.We should all view this so history will never repeat itself.Lest we forget the past for our future's sake.

rufasff This documentary, still seen by few, will hopefully be more widely distributed as years go by. The usual war dynamics are here; men brutalized by a brutal military machine lose their humanity.Listening to these old men tell the stories; however, puts it in an powerful context. Recommended, nine out of ten.

dgarber-1 A compelling, moving and frightening documentary, consisting of interviews with elderly Japanese veterans about their experiences in China (and Manchuria) during the war. Included in this group are former members of the infamous unit 731, known for its biological warfare tested on the Japanese.The movie clearly spells out the atrocities committed by the Japanese upon Chinese civilians, and their recollections of their feelings and motivations at the time. While such films that deal with Nazi atrocities are not uncommon, there are few other Japanese-produced documentaries of this type. The only off-putting note is when the soldiers describe their capture by the Chinese at the end of the war, and how well they were treated during their captivity -- often with more than one soldier using the exact words to describe it, and accompanied by propaganda-looking footage from the time. But this can hardly detract from the power of the testimony of these soldiers and their descriptions of the atrocities they committed.