Gnarly Trailer Drops for WWII Bacterial Warfare Thriller 731
Well Go USA has dropped a disturbing new trailer for the Chinese WWII thriller 731, also titled Evil Unbound, and it’s one that’ll leave audiences unsettled.
Directed by Linshan Zhao, the film dives into the horrific true story of the Japanese Imperial Army’s Unit 731, which carried out gruesome human experiments in Northeast China during the final days of the war.
The trailer might only run a minute long, but it’s packed with imagery that’s both terrifying and sickening, playing almost like a horror movie even though the filmmakers stress that these events actually happened.
The official synopsis sets the stage: “The story of the Japanese Army's Unit 731 in Harbin's Pingfang District on the eve of victory in the War of Resistance in 1945. Under the guise of ‘water supply & epidemic prevention,’ this nefarious unit carried out bacteriological warfare research and slaughtered civilians through human experimentation, exposing many crimes against humanity.
“Through the tragic ordeal of innocent civilians such as street vendor Wang Yongzhang—who were deceived, captured, imprisoned, and reduced to inhumane subjects of live experiments, the film depicts the suffering, awakening, and indomitable resistance of ordinary people in the torrent of war.”
It’s a harrowing description that paints the picture of a nightmare that history itself unfortunately confirmed as real.
731 is written and directed by Zhao, who previously helmed The Assassins with Chow Yun-Fat. The film aims to shed light on the atrocities of Unit 731 while weaving in the story of an ordinary man caught in the chaos.
With its gnarly subject matter and haunting visuals, this looks to be a deeply unsettling watch that doesn’t shy away from exposing crimes against humanity.
Starring Wu Jiang, Zhiwen Wang, Naiwen Li, Qian Sun, and Ziye Lin, the film is set to hit theaters in both China and the US on September 19, 2025.