Riben guizi/ Nihon onigo

Plot

Veteran documentarian and former assistant director for Kaneto Shindo, Minoru Matsui directs this horrific, sobering historical document consisting of 14 Japanese veterans confessing their bloody participation in Japan's war against China, starting with the rigged Manchurian incident in 1931 to Japan's eventual defeat in 1945. As described in the film, the soldiers believed their superiors' commands to be an articulation of the emperor's will. Blind obedience was expected; individual thought was brutally suppressed. New recruits quickly learned that the Chinese were not to be thought of as, much less treated like, humans. Chinese peasants were often used for bayonet and target practice. As civilian massacres became a primary means to control the countryside, soldiers were ordered to murder, torture, rape, and loot. Those who showed signs of reluctance were shunned. Meanwhile, the infamous Unit No. 731 performed biological experiments and vivisections on particularly unlucky Chinese soldiers. As the war turned against the Japanese and supplies dwindled, the Japanese army butchered Chinese civilians for food. This film was screened during the 2001 Toronto Film Festival. ~ Jonathan Crow, Rovi

Review

Made at a time when Japan's economic torpor continued to nudge that country to the right -- as exhibited in 2001 by the publication of revised history books that white-wash Japan's war responsibilities -- Minoru Matsui's gripping film is a powerful, undeniable counterargument to right-wing apologists and revisionists. As one old man after another confesses his acts of murder, torture, rape, and cannibalism, the film gradually overwhelms the viewer with the sheer unrelenting torrent of atrocities. More distressingly, the viewer comes to understand, while never permitted to condone, the mindset that would allow such casual barbarity as throwing a baby into a bonfire for laughs. Yet the most unnerving thing about the film is that the interviewees look thoroughly average and grandfatherly. While Japanese Devils is squarely targeted -- perhaps too targeted -- to a fin-de-siècle discourse of Japanese history, the film brilliantly ripples outward to illuminate the psychology of violence and dehumanization. ~ Jonathan Crow, Rovi

Credit

Minoru Matsui - Director, Minoru Matsui - Editor, Ryosuke Sato - Composer (Music Score), Kenichi Oguri - Cinematographer, Kenichi Oguri - Producer, Minoru Matsui - Producer, Minoru Matsui - Screenwriter

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