The Human Condition II: Road to Eternity

1959, 2h 58min -

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. Show more

"The Human Condition II: Road to Eternity" — movie produced in Japan and released in 1959. It has a very high rating on IMDb: 8.5 stars out of 10. It is a feature-length film with a runtime of 2h 58min. "The Human Condition II: Road to Eternity" is currently available to stream on The Criterion Channel. Click on a playlink to watch it now!