General Information

1. TITLES 

反人类暴行 / Fǎn rénlèi bàoxíng  (Crimes against humanity)

English Title :   Man's Inhumanity to Man    aka  Inhuman Atrocities, is a 20 x45' (medium) episodes drama  about the 731 death camp near Harbin, in Heilongjiang province of the PRC. (Some episodes are longer, over 60'.)

2. Shooting dates and locations :

The main entrance of the Unit 731 Museum in Harbin (Wikipedia)

2008 picture of the building on the site of 731 (Wikipedia) with the slab engraved with the explanations in front of the entrance.

Filming location : at the actual site of Unit 731 + Sifanglou, Pianmianzi Village, Shuilouzi Street, etc.  The core laboratory “Sifanglou” was restored 1:1. More than 50 real cultural relics lent by the 731st Unit Evidence Exhibition Hall, and props were used for filming (human tissue specimens and samurai swords; the documents presented at the end of the film are scans of the original archives, thanks to the supervision and dedication of scholar Jin Chengmin, the director of the Exhibition Hall of Evidence of Crimes of Unit 731 of the Japanese Invaders of China.

3. DIRECTOR 

(Dǎoyǎn 导演)

 Lǎo Suàn filming Reset

Directed by : Lǎo Suàn 老算   aka Passsee Mu

born Móu Xīncén 牟芯岑 on July 9, 1989 in Dūjiāngyàn 都江堰 town of Chéngdū 成都, Sìchuān Province. He is married to Kǒng Gēzǐ  孔歌子. He is a  graduate from the Animation School of Beijing Film Academy.  Also did screenwriting  (S) for several of the dramas listed below.

He directed 6 dramas and a movie since 2016:

• Straw Dog 刍狗  (2016, movie, released 2022)
• Mad House 疯人院 (2018, sci-fi suspense web drama) (S)
• Cloud Prison (2020, short drama in 2 parts)
• Reset (2022, time-loop web drama) (S)
• Escape from the Trilateral Slopes (2024, thriller adventures web drama) (S)
• Unsettled Case (破悬案 TBA)
• Man's Inhumanity To Man  (2025, war drama)  (S)

6. PLATFORMS TO WATCH THE SERIES

Released Dec 13, 2025 , broadcast on JSTV and Youku, one episode a day presumably till Dec.31, 2025.  (20 episodes total)

The drama can be watched with automatic English subtitles on YouTube ; fansubs are available on captionfly. (at least until episode 16)

TRAILER (6minutes 29) : it was posted to YouTube on December 13, 2025 .

7. SYNOPSIS : 

The entire series uses a dual-narrative structure, constantly shifting the viewer's perspective between historical scenes and modern investigations.

On the main timeline, back in the 1940s, the film returns to Harbin during the Japanese invasion of China, using the perspectives of multiple participants, mostly around the family of Tóng Chǎngfù, a peasant transporting apples. The focus is also on prisoners and escapees, on the staff of the facility including cartographer and sketch drawer  Arakawa Ryohei (born Chén Rǔpíng  陈汝平 ), documentary director Kojima Yukio, and Yán Bǐngruì, a Chinese man whom he was at odds with.  These characters profoundly expose the brutal human experiments and crimes against humanity committed by Unit 731, condemning the evils of militarism and highlighting the indomitable spirit of the Chinese people. There are also encounters with the guerilla freedom fighters who fought the occupying Kwantung army from makeshift bases hid in the forests and mountains, and glimpses of North Korean peasants harvesting apples. 

The drama is an original script. It is not supported by a novel, but based on real accounts and documentation, yet not meant as a documentary movie, portraying characters who embody the anonymous ordinary people of the historical period, with occasional ones based on historical ones such as the commander of Unit  731, Shiro Ishii,  torturer "researchers" such as Yoshimura Hisato who managed to get away scot-free literally with murders.   

For a tolerably easy readable episodes by episodes synopsis, read on  here (although there are some detail inaccuracies).

8.   BACKGROUND 

Manchus, warlords- Russians -Koreans- Japanese - A railway, ports, wars and invasions. 

Unit 731 and the other Units of research in germ and chemical weapons overseen by the Tokuo based  " Epidemic Prevention and Water Purification Department." 

Note: clickable highlighted words or sentences in the text link to sources or more information; pictures are linked to their sources.

Map of Harbin in 1940, from the drama opening credits

Tokiwa department store in Harbin 1940s.

"Harbin the center of civilization in Manchukuo" (old postcard caption) - Old pictures of the city 1930s-1940s. The colorized picture links to a 2019 essay about the people of Harbin, focusing on Russians.

In 1940, Harbin 哈尔滨  (Hā'ěrbīn in pinyin) was a city with a diverse population and European looking buildings, at the heart of a region which had been torn by wars for centuries, in particular from  the mid 19th century  before becoming an important economic and transport hub on the CER (China Eastern Railway) linking many cities from Russia to Běipíng/Běijīng and in particular with the port cities .

In the mid 19th century, the Russians had seized vast territories of Outer Manchuria, in particular the fishing port of Hǎishēnwǎi 海參崴 ("bay of sea cucumbers") where they built the port of Vladivostok ("defend the East" in Russian) created on July 2, 1860. It  became the main Russian naval base on the Pacific Ocean in 1872, and a free commercial port about 1900.  The Russians, despite expanding themselves, were wary of the growing Japanese expansionism which led to the First Sino-Japanese War (25 July 1894 – 17 April 1895), concluded by the treaty of Shimonoseki (in which the Qing empire was forced to cede control of Taiwan, which was occupied by the Japanese for 50 years after the treaty).  Two years later, the Russians obtained a 25 year lease on the port of Lǚshùnkǒu 旅顺口 (now a district of Dàlián 大连) ; it had first been developed as a port for the Běiyáng army of the Qīng in the 1880s but was finally built into the crucial Russian  Port Arthur.  

Not content with their first victory over the Qīng empire, the Japanese also eyed Korea (a tributary of Qīng empire), launching the Russo-Japanese War (8 February 1904 – 5 September 1905) during which they destroyed the Russian Pacific Fleet in a surprise attack at Port Arthur on 9 February 1904. The war was concluded with the Treaty of Portsmouth (5 September 1905), mediated by US President Theodore Roosevelt. At the time, the  United States saw Japan as an ally in the U.S.'s quest to control the Pacific and maintain for the U.S. China's "Open Door Policy.".  The treaty recognized Japanese interests in Korea, and awarded to Japan Russia's lease on the  Liáodōng Bàndǎo 辽东半岛 / Liáodōng Peninsula, control of the Russian-built South Manchuria Railway, and the southern half of the island of Sakhalin (Karafuto).  Japan also took over the leased to Russia territory  and renamed Port Arthur to Ryojun.

Next, the Japanese first seized the Korean emperor in 1905 before annexing Korea  with the Japan–Korea Treaty of 1910. 

After the Soviet retreated and the Japanese took over from the warlords of Shěnyáng (known as Mukden, its Manchu name until 1914), whom they had first supported because they helped their economic interests, Manchuria fell under Japanese control. 

The elder warlord Zhāng Zuòlín 張作霖 was betrayed and assassinated on June 2, 1928, by officers of the Japanese Kwantung Army. He was succeeded by his son, Zhāng Xuéliáng 張學良, who recognized the Guomindang Nationalist government. Over a couple of years, Zhāng achieved the reunification of China, eliminating the southern warlords; but he grew disillusioned by the Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek  (Jiang Jieshi in pinyin) who promoted nonresistance to the Japanese invasions of Manchuria in 1931 (this led him to organize the famous Xi'an incident in which he  arrested Jiang and forced him to form a Second United Front with the Chinese Communist Party against the Japanese. 

When Japan invaded Manchuria in 1931 and occupied the Soviet sphere of influence, the Soviet Union was still not strong enough in the East to oppose the Japanese. Stalin adopted a policy of strict neutrality, and the Soviet Union sold its rights to the Chinese Eastern Railway on 23 March 1935 to the government of the Manchukuo  (the puppet state established in 1932 by the Japanese in Manchuria, with its capital in Chǎngchūn, where the last Qing emperor was half detained in a small palace). 

Manchuria itself is not a name that was used by the local people, the Qing viewed only One China, multi-ethnic, and stated explicitly in various edicts, as well as within the 1689 Treaty of Nerchinsk, that the Manchu home provinces belonged to China.  The Manchu homeland was referred to as the 三東省; Sān dōngshěng; 'three eastern provinces' during the Qing, those provinces being Jílín, Hēilóngjiāng, and Liáoníng. These regions were first delineated in 1683, but would not become actual provinces until 1907.

The name of the city of Harbin was originally Manchu from a word, which means “place for drying fish nets.” It was transliterated into Russian as Kharbin .The Japanese used another name as a synonym for Harbin: Pinkiang  during the period of Manchukuo (1932–1945) but  the city's name in Japanese is typically written as ハルビン (Harubin), derived from the Chinese pronunciation "Harbin". The term "Pinkiang" itself is a transliteration of the Chinese name 哈尔滨 (Hā'ěrbīn) into a different romanization system and does not have a direct hiragana equivalent.  Whereas the Japanese Manchukuo official new name for its capital Chǎngchūn 长春  was transcribed as しんきょう in hiragana, and Xīnjīng 新京 in Chinese, romanized at the time as "Hsinking ".

Another historical name of Manchuria was "Kwantung" ( 關東/关东 Guāndōng) that literally translates to "east of (Shanhai) Pass" (Manchuria was separated from the rest of China by the Great Wall, and Shanhai Pass was the main pass used to travel between the two). The peninsula extending from southern Manchuria (now called the Liáodōng Peninsula) was therefore often called the "Guāndōng (Kwantung) Peninsula". 

The Kwantung Army (Japanese: 関東軍, Kantō-gun) was a general army of the Imperial Japanese Army from 1919 to 1945.

It was formed in 1906 as a security force for the Kwantung Leased Territory and South Manchurian Railway Zone after the Russo-Japanese Warof 1904–1905 and expanded into a prestigious army group to support Japanese interests in China, Manchuria, and Mongolia, to allow proxy control over Manchukuo, and become the main Japanese fighting forces during the 1937–1945 Second Sino-Japanese War. Many of its personnel won promotions to high positions in the Japanese military and civil government, including Hideki Tojo and Seishirō Itagaki. The Kwantung Army perpetrated several war crimes during World War II, sponsoring Unit 731, which both carried out acts of biological warfare and performed unethical human experimentation on civilians and Allied prisoners of war.  

The Kwantung army targeted opponents such as Chinese dissenters. Among the latter were famous Chinese revolutionaries and martyrs of the  Dongbei,  such as Zhào Shàngzhì 赵尚志 (1908-1942),  Yáng Jìngyǔ (1905-1940),  Lǐ Zhàolín (1911-1946), the heroine Zhào Yīmàn (1905-1936). These continued to struggle against the Japanese in Harbin and its administrative area, commanding the main anti-Japanese guerrilla army-Northeast Anti-Japanese United Army—which was originally organized by the Manchurian branch of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). That army was supported by the Comintern after the CCP Manchurian Provincial Committee was dissolved in 1936. 

But many other people ended up as experimental subjects for the Kwantung army:  Russians who were considered as invaders and spies, Jews, Mongolian, North Koreans who were considered as sub human slaves by the Japanese,  and even Europeans or other people who had lived in cosmopolitan Harbin of the early 1930s.

In exchange for results of the experiments, several war criminals were granted immunity by  USA president Truman, the US army being interested in these secret results, so they escaped scot-free, while a fraction got tried and sentenced by the joint committee of Allied forces. But worse again, as the USA after dropping the nuclear bombs on Japan to end the war, remained staunchly opposed to the "communist countries", in particular the PRC,  the evidence of the war crimes were hid, mentions of them downplayed as fiction both in the USA and in Japan (the Western world following suit), stipends were paid to former death camp personnel, some even became respected as professors and deans of universities!  Unawares at first of the extent of the intentional evil, since all prisoners had been killed and few of the personnel dared to speak the truth, having been sworn to silence, the PRC had first destroyed part of the camps in Harbin and Chǎngchūn (Unit 731 was only the one which became the most famous) before turning the remaining buildings into other uses : the area of Unit731 was vast, almost 6 km2, s part of the buildings were later used for industrial purposes, apart the one which was reserved for the memorial museum to the victims. 

Only in the 2000s-2010s did the evidence of evil resurface with interviews, the discovery of germ warfare weapons and more. Away from Manchuria, the sobering Memorial Hall to the Victims in (1937) Nánjīng Massacre by Japanese Invaders" was built in 1985, but the pit it stands on is only one of several mass graves along the Chángjiāng (aka Yangtse) river bordering the city ; more mass graves have been discovered, with clues, some of which are now in the museum complex which also houses the Nánjīng Massacre History and International Peace Research Institute, established in 2016 by the Jiāngsū Provincial Government to conduct research on wartime history and peace studies. Since December 13, 2014, the Memorial Hall has served as the permanent venue for the state memorial ceremony for the victims ; outside these remembrance duties ceremonies, the site serves as both a solemn reminder of the past and a call for peace and historical remembrance.   

Today, it has surfaced that what at the time looked as a benign "prevention and control of epidemics and water purification unit" in Manchuria was in fact a large-scale biological and chemical warfare research base, which maintained multiple branches across mainland China and even Southeast Asia, and conducted genocidal operations as far away as Nánjīng 南京 and other locations....  Other secret units had been set up by the Japanese invaders in China as part of a network reaching far away in occupied China : Unit 100 in Chǎngchūn, Unit 731, Unit 1644 in Nánjīng, Unit 1855 in Běijīng, Unit 8,604 in Guǎngzhōu...

These "secret units" were often large, with "the one in Nánjīng being the largest". The main facility of "731"  in Píngfáng 平房, 24 kilometers (15 mi) south of Harbin, was a vast complex over 6sq km  (2.3 sq mi) ), comprising 150 buildings and capable of housing up to 600 prisoners at a time for experimental purposes.  There were also branch operation sites away from the main complex.

  Unit 731 employed approximately 3,000 personnel, including physicians, pathologists, pharmacists, engineers, and other skilled professionals, many of whom were recruited from Japan’s top medical institutions. 

All the Units were overseen, like infamous Unit 731, by the Tokyo-based Epidemic Prevention and Water Purification Department. The Japanese Army Ministry had promoted the relocation of the Epidemic Prevention Research Institute of the Japanese Medical School from Tokyo to Harbin in 1933, already known as Ishii Unit or Kamo Unit then.  Their primary activity reportedly involved experimenting on humans to enable Japan to develop biological weapons, in violation of the 1925 Geneva treaty.  All engaged in biomedical research and the production of biological weapons. 

In 1933, a human experimentation facility was established at Bèi īn  River 背荫河  in Wǔcháng 五常, present-day Hēilóngjiāng province. That facility was built on land forcibly taken from 20 local households of Zhōngmǎ,  a diffuse village of about 300 homes (which were burnt down  burnt down, except for a large building suitable for use as a headquarters) to construct  中馬城— aka Zhōngmǎ Prison Camp or Unit Tōgō. Thousands of laborers and hundreds of horse-drawn carriages were used to construct the complex over a year. It featured high-voltage electrified barbed wire fences, gun towers, a two-meter-wide moat, and a suspension bridge with large black iron gates guarded by armed Japanese soldiers, all designed to prevent escapes and maintain secrecy. The average life expectancy of a prisoner at the camp was one month. Prisoners who survived the experiments, but who were deemed too weak for further tests, were killed. The facility was estimated to have held between 500-600 prisoners at any one time, with a capacity for over 1000.  The site was connected by a special railway line and an airport, and all train passengers passing Bèiyīnhé 背荫河 Station were required to keep curtains closed to prevent observation. It operated until 1936, when a mass escape by 12 Chinese prisoners exposed the site’s vulnerabilities and prompted the Japanese military to demolish the fortress in 1937. The experimentation was next conducted in the more secure Units, such as Unit 731.

The military personnel in the units developed early hazmat suits and conducted human experimentation and tested biological agents such as plague, cholera, and anthrax on prisoners and civilians, resulting in thousands of deaths.  But the Units were not limited to experimentation; they also developed and deployed biological weapons, with documented attacks in cities like Níngbō and throughout Zhèjiāng province in 1941. There were also field operations, such as the release of plague-infected fleas and contamination of water supplies.

Location of City of Harbin, nearby towns, villages, cities (from the map in opening credits)

 Unit 731 (Japanese: 731部隊, "Nana-san-ichi Butai"), officially known as the Manchu Detachment 731, was also referred to as the Kamo Detachment and the Ishii Unit (from the name of  Lieutenant General Shirō Ishii, head of the Unit). Its activities included infecting prisoners with deadly diseases, conducting vivisection, performing organ harvesting, testing hypobaric chambers, amputating limbs, and exposing victims to chemical agents and explosives. But although this came as pretense "research", it was in fact only mostly unscientific, racist mass murder in the cruelest way, and contrary to nazi camps, where some survived, Unit 731 left no survivor except personnel. No documented survivors among inmates of Unit 731 are known.  An estimated 14,000 people were killed inside the facility itself. In addition, biological weapons developed by Unit 731 caused the deaths of between 200,000 and 500,000 people in Chinese cities and villages, through deliberate contamination of water supplies, food, and agricultural land.  

Traces of what was going on there were erased as much as possible when Japan lost the war, including the remains of the prisoners—often referred to as maruta ("wooden logs") by the staff. The dehumanizing term "maruta" was also used in the context of the unit's cover story, as the facility was disguised as a lumber mill. The prisoners were mainly Chinese civilians, but also included Russians, Koreans, and others, including children and pregnant women. treated like things to play with, since only the superior Japanese were "human" in their minds . Those Japanese personnel who disagreed could not easily leave and flee the Units, except through suicide, so the high turnover there shows that the Unit also took its toll on the more human minded Japanese, and only the worst held on; when the last "site sweepers" left, they were given cyanide pills so they would not be able to give testimony, and those who stayed alive were often cowed into silence. The silence was enforced also at government level, especially in Japan, and in the USA which people in charge could not be totally clueless, since they had bought documentation in exchange for immunity for many top criminals and even shipped some to safety abroad for a while.  

The International Military Tribunal for the Far East (IMTFE), targeted only 28 top criminals and convicted 25, with 7 death sentences and 16 life imprisonment (but many were liberated by 1953...). There were other less publicized trials, in Khabarovsk, of the Soviet Union. But the 12 members of Unit 731 captured by the Russian Army and put on trial from 25 to 31 December 1949 in Khabarovsk also negotiated clemency for information. Those 12 Japanese war criminals were eventually released and repatriated to Japan by 1956.  Anyway, the Western powers dismissed the evidence of Unit 731 as Communist propaganda. Allied powers tribunals did try 5,600 Japanese military personnel in approximately 50 locations across the Asia-Pacific region: around 4,600 were found guilty, with about 920 sentenced to death and executed. But prison sentences were gradually reduced over time, and all surviving Japanese war criminals had been released by the end of 1958.  "The issue of war crimes remains controversial in Japan, with some government officials visiting the Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo, which honors all Japanese war dead—including convicted Class-A war criminals—drawing criticism from neighboring countries. While the Japanese government acknowledges the suffering caused during the war, debates continue over the sincerity of apologies and the portrayal of wartime events in history textbooks."

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About 731, also check out this comment (by MDL member roddib ) in the general comments section.

Check out the Wikipedia detailed  article about Unit 731  and this recent short video :

10. RECEPTION

"The new Chinese war drama Atrocities Against Humanity  has suddenly become a hit these past two days. After only three episodes, its popularity soared to over 8000. It's hard to miss the fact that discussion forums on Douban and Weibo are filled with comments expressing their feelings: "This time it really hurts, it's so depressing!" ...No one expected Atrocities Against Humanity to be such a dark horse, even more powerful than anticipated.

Each episode delves deeper into long-suppressed truths, then recreates them with the most realistic details: the eerie high walls of the "Epidemic Prevention and Water Supply Department," the chimneys billowing black smoke, and the eerily empty corridors that send chills down your spine. The four-sided building is crammed with various specimens-plague-infected rats, fleas, horse carcasses buried in grass-countless small details meticulously replicated from historical records. This isn't about deliberately sensationalizing the scenes; it's about letting you be overwhelmed by the raw truth of history. Having nightmares after watching it is no exaggeration.

The cast conveys the dismay, fear and heartache vividly, with trembling.  The narrative pace is remarkably restrained, avoiding mainstream sentimentality and instead using indirect methods to uncover the heinous crimes the invaders concealed behind lies. Stories like Tóng Chǎngfù  (played by  Jiāng Qílín) unearthing a horse carcass, the crowd contracting plague after eating the horse, and  Chén Rǔpíng   / Arakawa Ryohei (played by Zhāng Yǔ ) being forced to record every step of the frostbite victims' ordeal... It  isn't the kind of war drama that fabricates heroic legends; instead, it uses a dry, calm, and even somewhat brutal narrative style to present undeniable history before your eyes. This puzzle is certainly far from complete, but it has already ignited the domestic drama market this year. 

The ending lacks a theme song; instead, it coldly plays a recording of the trial of Japanese war criminals, making it impossible not to feel deeply moved."  

A GLOWING SCORE ON DOUBAN: 

"On December 19, 2025, the drama Douban opening score was 8.5 points, which was the highest score for Chinese dramas in 2025" as mentioned on the Baidu drama page.  It still rose to 8.7 and 8.9 in February 2026!

(Douban scores of above 7 are considered good. Anything above 8 is pretty much a stellar CDrama.)

Click on picture above to check latest rating