Too much of everything

everything you have heard about this movie is true.

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

The storyline feels a little thin and moth-eaten in parts but this sequel is plenty of fun.

"No Greater Love" is the first part of the 9 hours 47 minutes trilogy directed by Masaki Kobayashi based on the six-volume novel by Junpei Gomikawa. A captivating, haunting, and touching anti-war epic film where Kobayashi masterfully criticizes and confronts the Japanese practices and applications via WW2 through a self-righteous character who is trying to "catch the train of humanism before it's too late".Kaji is a socialist and a pacifist with great morals. His self- righteousness is shown from the first beginning when he refuses to sleep with his girlfriend for the concern of being enlisted soon in the army and not be able to fulfill his duties towards her. He has his own theories and principles also in dealing with work environment and laborers. He gets a job offer to be a supervisor in an iron mine in a small Manchurian village. Since he opposes war, he accepts it as his only way out of conscription. He also gets to be with his girlfriend (they soon marry).Kaji now in his new work faces moral dilemmas that prove day by day not to be easier than those he was going to face in the military. He struggles with the old, brutal, and oppressive mentalities. Things get nastier when 600 Chinese men are brought to the mine as prisoners of war.. plots, deceptions, racism, torture.. the list goes on. Many try to shake his convictions by convincing him that the theories may prove wrong when applied, and also that peace theories do not apply in war time. His answer was that either the theories are wrong or they were faultily applied. Yet, even his wife doubts his intentions for a moment.. will he surrender?Kobayashi's humanist film is a delicate study of the human psychology during hardships and the capabilities of the man to stand still and fight for what is right. It is also a sincere revision to a difficult era in Japanese history, reacting responsibly in opening a new page for the coming generations. "It's not my fault that I'm Japanese.. yet, it's my worst crime that I am", states Kaji. What can we do to deserve this beautiful name "man", one prisoner ask him.Kaji represents in his fight to become the man not the beast all humanity not only of course the Japanese.. every generation from the first beginning. The masterful Kobayashi contributes greatly to this epic film with extraordinary execution.. and Tatsuya Nakadai was a great choice for the leading role. A piece of art considered by many to be one of the greatest ever.

Kobayashi's "The Human Condition" is one of a handful of great anti-war movies. While Japanese film has confronted its own crimes of war more than other cinema, I am only familiar with one other Japanese movie which deals directly with the war & the plight of conscientious objectors: Kurosawa's "No Regrets for Our Youth". Many films deal with the futility of war: "Seven Samurai" & "Yojimbo" come immediately to mind. But "Human Condition" takes on the enormity of war, & the means by which everyone becomes complicit in its total corruption. The hero, though a Conscientious Objector, becomes a colonial occupier, an exploiter of slave labor, an employer of a madam who runs a camp of women & girls impressed into prostitution, & generally runs the gamut of crimes against humanity while trying to maintain his virtue & love's beauty. Parts II & III also explore the brutality of the army toward its own soldiers, & the complete desecration of the ideals of the Russian Revolution & the cruelty of ordinary Chinese villagers."The Human Condition" should be ranked with "Grand Illusion", though what could be as lyrical as the Renoir film? If only this were require viewing in all military academies. If only it were required viewing for all lawmakers & the executive. Is that asking too much?

This film was hugely popular when it came out around 1960, reflecting the fiercely anti-war sentiment of the Japanese at the time. I have read that for a time when it came out, all three parts of The Human Condition (totaling nine and one-half hours) were shown in a single sitting at theaters in northern Tokyo, starting around 10 pm and ending in time for people to catch the trains home the next morning.While it is a powerful film which portrays much of the suffering and brutality visited on the Chinese in Manchuria by the Japanese war machine, it is not without some rather unlikely plot twists. In particular, Kaji seems somewhat too saint-like to be believable.It is worth mentioning that the title "The Human Condition" is perhaps misleading. The Japanese word "jouken" corresponding to "condition" is not normally used in a descriptive sense, but rather, as a condition to be fulfilled or satisfied. Thus the title might be better rendered "The Conditions for Being Human"--the implication being that in wartime, the conditions for remaining fully human are elusive at best.

The greatest film ever made! And I've seen many, many films. This even supercedes The Seven Samurai which I consider a masterwork. The Human Condition is 10 hours and in 3 movies. A stunning performance by Tatsuya Nakadai. Find the 3 parts, hie yourself off to a monastery and watch them, with a bit of a breather between each movie. Stroheim's Greed was about 10 hours before the Hollywood hacks cut it back. This one is intact. It is subtitled and not dubbed.