HUMAN CONDITION - DVD-BOX SET-CRITERION COLLECTION

Details

• Release Year: 1959
• Genre: Drama, War
• Plot: 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.
• Cast: Tatsuya Nakadai, Michiyo Aratama, Chikage Awashima, Ineko Arima, Keiji Sada, Sô Yamamura, Akira Ishihama, Kôji Nanbara, Seiji Miyaguchi, Tôru Abe, Masao Mishima, Eitarô Ozawa, Kôji Mitsui, Akitake Kôno, Nobuo Nakamura, Kyû Sazanka, Zenichi Inagawa, Shinichirô Minami, Shoji Sayama, Masaki Kobayashi, Zenzô Matsuyama, Jumpei Gomikawa
• Director: Masaki Kobayashi
• Runtime: 9:34
• Company: Ninjin Club Productions, Shochiku Co., Ltd. (Shôchiku Eiga), The Criterion Collection
• Media Format: Movie