Product Details

• Actors: Tatsuya Nakadai, Michiyo Aratama, Chikage Awashima, Ineko Arima, Keiji Sada
• Directors: Masaki Kobayashi
• Writers: Masaki Kobayashi, Jumpei Gomikawa, Zenzo Matsuyama
• Producers: Shigeru Wakatsuki
• Format: Black & White, DVD, Letterboxed, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
• Language: Japanese (Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono)
• Subtitles: English
• Region: All Regions
• Aspect Ratio: 2.20:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Rated: Unrated
• Studio: Image Entertainment
• DVD Release Date: June 22, 1999
• Run Time: 208 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (16 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B00000ILES
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #157,460 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)
• For more information about "Human Condition I - No Greater Love" visit the Internet Movie Database (IMDb)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

34 of 36 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The FilmNotes entry from the Pacific Film Archive:, May 26, 2001

By 

Ern Malley (Madison, WI) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Human Condition I - No Greater Love (DVD)

It is rare when an episode of national history can be interpreted without the burden of illusions, both obsolete and nostalgic. And this is perhaps one of the great strengths of Masaki Kobayashi's The Human Condition, a nine-hour epic about Japan's occupation of China during the Second World War. The trilogy begins with an attack on the inhuman practices within the Japanese Army and ends with a bitter denunciation of Stalinism by the would-be-socialist hero, Kaji (Tatsuya Nakadai), a Japanese soldier who has confronted the horrid face of war and found it unyielding. In grand Dostoyevskian flourishes, Kobayashi suggests the impossibility of an individual altering the ethical standards of a social system. Kaji, driven by an idealized vision of Japan redeemed by social reform, tries to overcome injustice and exploitation during a military conquest based solely on these principles. Brutalized by the very country he defends, Kaji refuses to desert, for desertion implies relinquishing responsibility for his own homeland. Kaji's heroism lies in this exacting refusal to abandon Japan or his humanity. Part One finds Kaji working as a supervisor in a forced labor camp in southern Manchuria where he and his wife (Michiyo Aratama) attempt to better the dreadful lot of the enslaved Chinese workers. Kaji is accused of dissent, tortured, then inducted into the army. In Part Two, Kaji is equally appalled by the horrendous treatment afforded recruits. Given the rank of officer, he tries to install more humane procedures but only succeeds in attracting the ire of his fellow officers. By Part Three, the Japanese army is being routed by superior Russian troops. Fleeing to the south, Kaji is captured by the Soviet army and imprisoned. Here, he learns the bitter truth of the Red Army as liberators. Kobayashi's The Human Condition can be viewed as a single aesthetic entity, complete in its sweep of historical events and visual stylizations. The gargantuan undertaking to dramatize the wilful ironies of the Manchurian campaign never compromises Kobayashi's ability to define the human scale of injustice. Standing-in for the director, Kaji says, "Minor facts ignored by history can be fatal to the individual." It is Masaki Kobayashi's recognition of "minor facts" that joins the poetic to the journalistic in a scathing epic about the cruelties of war.

14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars ONE OF THE ALL-TIME CLASSIC EPICS NOW ON DVD!, June 27, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Human Condition I - No Greater Love (DVD)

This is Part One of one of the greatest films of Japanese cinema and certainly one of the best I've ever seen.

I saw all three parts of Kobayashi's Human Condition Trilogy during an all night marathon of a worn 16mm print while I was in college seven years ago. I've been waiting for a proper video version ever since. The VHS version was in the crummy EP mode, because of the enormous length of each part, and not priced to sell through.

Masaki Kobayashi's work speaks for itself, but I recommend that people refer to his other films listed at Amazon and IMDB. The trilogy contains some of the greatest imagery I have ever seen. It is a grueling war story that doesn't hold back, very much in the league of later war/atrocity films like The Killing Fields and Schindler's List. Although the whole trilogy is amazing in length (the college marathon ran 10 hours with intermissions!) it is very compelling and never drags. It is the story of idealism fighting against the darkness of human barbarism in World War II. If you can handle it, this is well worth getting.

The DVD is fully letterboxed to the proper aspect ratio, with subtitles placed fully within the lower black bar. I can't wait for my copies of Parts Two and Three.

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars part 1 of one of the greatest anti-war films, August 19, 2004

By 

H. Richards (Sydney, Australia) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Human Condition I - No Greater Love (DVD)

The acting is inspiring, the script gut-wrenchingly convincing and the cinematography on a par with that of other Japanese classics. This three-part series tells it like it was without cliches and the impact is restrained enough to last for three hours in each episode. Kaji, an idealistic Japanese man with socialist inclinations is embroiled in the fascist culture of WWII Japan. His struggle as a conscientious objector has universal overtones: the conflicts between mass mania and personal integrity, between nationalistic tribalism and humanistic sensitivity, between the pack mentality of bullying and the vulnerability of someone who stands up for what is right.