Absolutely, I never said it was. Just that Mous's original intention had been to make a serious documentary.
He claims that his plans had to change because of no original documents being available (either destroyed or shipped back to Japan/USA/Russia and classified), and because nobody was willing to fund the project (he uses the phrase "political hot potato"). Granted, this version of events does raise several other questions.
About criticisms of exploitation, Mous says "
Man Behind the Sun is not exploitation. If I wanted the film to be a splatter film, I could have made it far more shocking than it is (laughs). It was very difficult for me to decide if the film was over-the-top or if I had to make it more gruesome. I still want people to know how terrible the Japanese camps were and that's why I can't see what's the big deal over the boy's autopsy - I had to show something."
My point overall anyway, was that I think this film deserves to be watched as more than just a straightforward horror. Whether or not Mous was actually successful or misguided in his intentions... well that's another question entirely.
It's a fascinating topic though - how do we define the horror genre? At what point does a horror become a war film, or a historical film, or vice versa? Fascinating to me anyway, perhaps I need to get out more :-)
Full interview with Mous here by the way -
T.S. Mous Interview 1999