Japan
1959
574 minutes
Black and White
2.35:1
Japanese
480
Masaki Kobayashi’s mammoth humanist drama is one of the most staggering achievements of Japanese cinema. Originally filmed and released in three parts, the nine-and-a-half-hour The Human Condition (Ningen no joken), adapted from Junpei Gomikawa’s six-volume novel, tells of the journey of the well-intentioned yet naive Kaji (handsome Japanese superstar Tatsuya Nakadai) from labor camp supervisor to Imperial Army soldier to Soviet POW. Constantly trying to rise above a corrupt system, Kaji time and again finds his morals an impediment rather than an advantage. A raw indictment of its nation’s wartime mentality as well as a personal existential tragedy, Kobayashi’s riveting, gorgeously filmed epic is novelistic cinema at its best.
| Kaji | Tatsuya Nakadai |
| Michiko (Parts 1, 2, 3, 5, and 6) | Michiyo Aratama |
| Jin Tung Fu (Parts 1 and 2) | Chikage Awashima |
| Yang Chun Lan (Parts 1 and 2) | Ineko Arima |
| Kageyama (Parts 1 and 4) | Keiji Sada |
| Okishima (Parts 1 and 2) | So Yamamura |
| Chen (Parts 1 and 2) | Akira Ishihama |
| Kao (Parts 1 and 2) | Shinji Nambara |
| Wang Heng Li (Parts 1 and 2) | Seiji Miyaguchi |
| Sergeant Watai (Parts 1 and 2) | Toru Abe |
| Manager Kuroki (Parts 1 and 2) | Masao Mishima |
| Okazaki (Parts 1 and 2) | Eitaro Ozawa |
| Furuya (Parts 1 and 2) | Koji Mitsui |
| Captain Kono (Parts 1 and 2) | Akitake Kono |
| Head Office Chief (Parts 1 and 2) | Nobuo Nakamura |
| Cho Meisan (Parts 1 and 2) | Kyu Sazanka |
| Sasa (Part 3) | Kokinji Katsura |
| Hino (Part 3) | Jun Tatara |
| Yoshida (Part 3) | Michio Minami |
| Shinjo (Part 3) | Kei Sato |
| Obara (Part 3) | Kunie Tanaka |
| Tange (Part 3, 5, and 6) | Taketoshi Naito |
| Terada (Parts 4, 5, and 6) | Yusuke Kawazu |
| Naruto (Part 4) | Susumu Fujita |
| Onodera (Part 4) | Minoru Chiaki |
| Officer aspirant (Part 4) | Shoji Yasui |
| Staff officer (Part 4) | Fumio Watanabe |
| Refugee (Part 5) | Tamao Nakamura |
| Old man in refugee camp (Part 6) | Chishu Ryu |
| Old woman in refugee camp (Part 6) | Hideko Takamine |
| Tatsuko (Part 5) | Kyoko Kishida |
| Umeko (Part 5) | Reiko Hitomi |
| Hironaka (Part 5) | Keijiro Morozumi |
| Hikida (Part 5) | Koji Kiyomura |
| Kirihara (Part 5 and 6) | Nobuo Kaneko |
| Russian officer (Part 6) | Ed Keene |
| Chabayev (Part 6) | Ronald Self |
| Director | Masaki Kobayashi |
| Producer | Shigeru Wakatsuki |
| Screenplay | Zenzo Matsuyama and Masaki Kobayashi |
| Based on the novel by | Jumpei Gomikawa |
| Production managers | Tatsuo Osawa and Zempei Moriyama |
| Cinematography | Yoshio Miyajima |
| Lighting | Takashi Kato and Akira Aomatsu |
| Editing | Keiichi Uraoka |
| Music | Chuji Kinoshita |
| Sound | Hideo Nishizaki |
| Art direction | Kazue Hirataka |
FOUR-DISC SPECIAL EDITION:
[Updated] Critics have been deploying appropriately expansive terms in discussing Masaki Kobayashi’s gigantic slab of filmmaking The Human Condition on the occasion of its Criterion DVD release: “magnificent” (Time), “epic” (Time Out Chicago), even “suitably...
“It’s not my fault that I’m Japanese . . . yet it’s my worst crime that I am!” The words are those of Kaji, hero of The Human Condition, but in their anguish and existential...
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