First of all, it's China. Whether it died during the filming is an irrelevant question, they drop live cats in boiling water and eat them by the millions. Are we really so naive as to take the director's word for it? When he made the film, I doubt he was counting on a western controversy to arise from it, considering how trivial it would be within his own culture. Being generous, I'll say there is a 1% chance that the director treated the cat with respect during its life. Interpret it how you will, but that's in all likelihood. Am I condemning him or the culture? Maybe from an emotional perspective, as I think it's obvious animals have feelings, but historically it was done in some areas by necessity for survival. The lack of consideration is all I condemn.
Second, this is a propaganda film, and it's amazing people don't acknowledge that. All of the social commentary can be taken with a grain of salt. Yep, there was human experimentation on war prisoners in Japan. Most of these scientists honestly thought they were helping their country, to get knowledge about war tech and help their country win. I don't even know if the citizens knew anything about it, and if they did, is it that hard to see how propaganda takes hold? But ad nauseum, you will get the "Japan deserved to be nuked/should be nuked again" and it's really telling of those people. I wonder what atrocities they would be blamed for, if held responsible for the corruption of their own governments.
As far as vegetarianism, I would be a vegan if it wasn't a full time job. I am too far behind on things in my life to be spending much time cooking or shopping. As for experimentation, I'm against all of it. Humans may have a higher self-awareness, and that is a perfectly rational argument to make when it's a 1 vs 1 situation, not so much when it's millions of utterly ruined lives and no benefit in sight, or in the least not a proportional one. The only time experimentation might be acceptable, is when the person is guilty of atrocities and is forced to atone in some way. This makes it debatable in my view whether it's worse what Japan did, or what science is currently doing systematically, to countless billions of conscious individuals. Albeit "lesser consciousness" individuals, how many dogs have to suffer to equal the suffering of one human?
Obviously people don't think about this in their arrogance. Obviously dogs will never be shaped like humans, and their suffering is easily dismissed in the idea that MAYBE, at some undetermined point, a FEW(by comparison) humans WHO CAN AFFORD IT will gain some tangible benefit from this ruthless subjugation. Would we do this to a brain damaged human with less self-awareness than a dog? Not in your life. It's all about shape, that's the arrogance of it.
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