“A Soldier’s Prayer”
Directed by Masaki Kobayashi • 1961 • Japan
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.
Up Next in Starring Tatsuya Nakadai
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The Sword of Doom
Directed by Kihachi Okamoto • 1966 • Japan
Starring Tatsuya Nakadai, Toshiro MifuneTatsuya Nakadai and Toshiro Mifune star in the story of a wandering samurai who exists in a maelstrom of violence. A gifted swordsman plying his craft during the turbulent final days of shogunate rule in Japan, R...
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Zatoichi Goes to the Fire Festival
ZATOICHI #21
Directed by Kenji Misumi • 1970 • JapanCowritten by star Shintaro Katsu, this adventure pits Zatoichi against one of his most diabolical foes: a blind yakuza boss whose reign of terror and exploitation has made him nearly mythic. Guest starring the legendary Tatsuya Nakadai as a ro...
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Conflagration
Directed by Kon Ichikawa • 1958 • Japan
Starring Raizo Ichikawa, Tatsuya NakadaiAdapted from a novel by Yukio Mishima and told in an intricate flashback structure, CONFLAGRATION dramatizes the psychological collapse of Goichi (Raizo Ichikawa), a young Buddhist acolyte from a dysfunctional f...
