''Philosophy of a Knife'' is a 2008 Russian-American

horror film Horror is a film genre that seeks to elicit fear or disgust in its audience for entertainment purposes. Horror films often explore dark subject matter and may deal with transgressive topics or themes. Broad elements include monsters, ap ...

written, produced, shot, edited, and directed by . It covers the Japanese Army's

Unit 731 , short for Manshu Detachment 731 and also known as the Kamo Detachment and Ishii Unit, was a covert Biological warfare, biological and chemical warfare research and development unit of the Imperial Japanese Army that engaged in unethical h ...

, mixing archival footage, interviews, and extremely graphic reenactments of experiments performed there. The film is four hours long and is presented in two parts (''Part one'' and ''Part two''). It was shot in black and white and in English. The interviews are shot in color and have English subtitles.

Plot

During World War II in Japan, a covert division known as

conducts gruesome experiments on humans in its research for biological and chemical warfare.

Release

''Philosophy of a Knife'' was shown at the 2008

Sitges Film Festival The Sitges Film Festival ( ca, Festival Internacional de Cinema Fantàstic de Catalunya, links=no) is an annual film festival held in Sitges, Spain, specialized in fantasy and horror films, of which it is considered one of the world's foremost in ...

TLA Releasing TLA Releasing is a US film distribution and production company owned by TLA Entertainment Group. In March 2011, a new LLC was formed for the operation. Its primary output is LGBT-related films from all over the world under the "TLA Releasing" lab ...

and

Unearthed Films Unearthed Films is a U.S. film distribution and production company that imports exploitation films primarily from Eastern Asia. History The company was created by Stephen Biro, Paul White and Rhett Rushing. Their initial releases were the first o ...

released the unrated film on DVD in July 2008.

Soundtrack

The film features

Manoush Manoush (born 1971) is a French actress and singer. Biography Early life Manoush was born 1972 or 1973 as Manoush Barandaj or Manoush Barandyai in Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer as the third child of a mother of French Sinti origin and a German-Amer ...

and Cyanide Savior's song "Dead Before Born" as well as a song by A. Shevchenko, "Forgive Me", with Manoush speaking the introduction to the track. It also includes an original score by Shevchenko. A selection of tracks named Choice Cuts from ''Philosophy of a Knife'' has been released as a limited edition double vinyl, plus a bonus CD by Spikerot Records in 2018.

Reception

The Worldwide Celluloid Massacre has ''Philosophy of a Knife'' listed as the fifth most disturbing film it has covered, and stated that while it was interesting and intense "I was reminded of Gibson's '' Passion'' in that the movie takes an ambitious and difficult subject, then spends most of its time focusing only on gore". Rob Hunter of the

Film School Rejects Film School Rejects is an American blog devoted to movie reviews, interviews, film industry news, and feature commentary. It was founded by Neil Miller in February 2006. The site was nominated for Best News Blog by ''Total Film'' magazine and n ...

called it a "crappy exploitation film" and "pseudo-documentary" that could only be worth watching "if all of Iskanov's footage was edited out, and just the documentary footage coupled with the dry, British, informative narration were left". A 0 out of 5 was given by

Dread Central Dread Central is an American website founded in 2006 that is dedicated to horror news, interviews, and reviews. It covers horror films, comics, novels, and toys. Dread Central has won the Rondo Hatton Classic Horror Award for Best Website ...

's Scott A. Johnson, who concluded, "As a reviewer, one tries to find a few positive things to say about each film. Congratulations are in order for ''Philosophy of a Knife'' in that it succeeded in being the crappiest pile of masturbatory, art-house wannabe, pedantic and mean-spirited shit I've ever had the displeasure of watching".

References

External links