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The Human Condition III: A Soldier's Prayer

The Human Condition III: A Soldier's Prayer (1961)

January. 28,1961
|
8.8
| Drama History War

After the Japanese defeat to the Russians, Kaji leads the last remaining men through Manchuria. Intent on returning to his dear wife and his old life, Kaji faces great odds in a variety of different harrowing circumstances as he and his fellow men sneak behind enemy lines.

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UnowPriceless
1961/01/28

hyped garbage

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AshUnow
1961/01/29

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

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Jonah Abbott
1961/01/30

There's no way I can possibly love it entirely but I just think its ridiculously bad, but enjoyable at the same time.

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Philippa
1961/01/31

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

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overdarklord
1961/02/01

The third and final part of "The Human Condition" series is the most brutal, breathtaking and deeply disturbing movie of the three. All the beating you saw in the second part cant even come close to how physically, but especially psychologically brutal and disturbing this movie can be. This movie ultimatly playes with the idea that no matter how much of a good person you are, which in the case of our main protagonist, Kaji was shown throughout the last 2 movies, you will always been judged by steriotypes and clichee rather than on your actions and what you have been going through. Is it right to torture and treat people the same way they treated others, even if they have been forced by the military and the zeitgeist of the moment? Is it morally justifiable? This is something everyone has to answer for themself, this movie just shows you this idea in an objective manner not really taking any sides.With watching this series Masaki Kobayashi, finally made the case for him being the best japanese director of the last century in my opinion. And it also made the case for Tatsuya Nakadai being the best actor of the last century. The emotions this man can convey with this performance by far surpass anything I have seen from any other japanese actor of the last century. The character development Kaji endured throughout the series but especially through this final part was written perfectly and absolutely believably portrayed.

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mevmijaumau
1961/02/02

The Human Condition (Ningen no jôken) is a 9,5 hour long epic film trilogy directed by Masaki Kobayashi, based on the six volume novel by Junpei Gomikawa. The trilogy stays true to the novel's composition by being divided into six parts, meaning that each of the three installments are split in two parts, in between which are intermissions. Both parts in the first film begin with the same opening credits sequence, showing us some stoneworks portraying dramatic imagery (the similar intro opens all three films). The three movies, each long 3 hours or more, are called No Greater Love, Road to Eternity and A Soldier's Prayer.Okay, now, I enjoyed the first film despite some historical inaccuracies. I liked the second movie but it didn't leave much of an impact on me. But this one, A Soldier's Prayer, is just brilliant.Unlike the first two films, ASP is much less repetitive and a lot more diverse stuff goes on. We follow Kaji on his long path to his wife Michiko. First he tries to flee the war zone accompanied by other soldiers and civilians, then they encounter Chinese forces, from which they escape through a burning wheat field. They stumble upon an encampment which gets besieged by the Soviets, after which Kaji ends up as a worker in a Red Army camp, mirroring his position in a Manchurian work camp from the first film. He escapes and meets his doom in a snowy outback, where he dies out of hunger or exhaustion.That's basically the plot, although a lot of other things happen and a lot of characters are introduced. Throughout the film, you feel 100% immersed in every obstacle Kaji faces and that feeling never lets up. Tatsuya Nakadai gives us one of the best, most believable performances I've ever come across (and I don't even think this is his best). Kobayashi: "When I made The Human Condition, most actors at that time were either of prewar or mid-war generations. I was looking for a person who could convey the feeling of the new generation. Nakadai was able to convey this new, strong, energetic side of postwar youth."Of course the supporting cast is great too, and there are even some big names accompanying the unknown portion of the cast. There's Kyoko Kishida as Ryuko, Chishu Ryu as the man in the encampment and Hideko Takamine as the unnamed woman who's also situated there.The cinematography is even better than in its two predecessors; some shots from this movie you'll remember for a long, long time - Kaji standing by a huge field with scavengers flying around, him being interrogated at the Soviet work camp HQ and finally getting stranded in the middle of nowhere for example. It's interesting to note that the first two films begin with a snowy scene, while the third movie ends with one.The trilogy doesn't take any sides as far as nations themselves are concerned and even portrays the Japanese military in an unbelievably negative light for the time it was released. It's an universal anti-war film that brilliantly concludes the trilogy. Kobayashi also argued against the militaristic system while he was in the army, which must be why he later said: "I am Kaji."Kobayashi: "I spent four years making The Human Condition. While making it, I received many letters from people requesting me not to let Kaji die in the end. I had considered that possibility, but to me, his death was actually a resurrection. He had to die there. With his death, he lives in the minds of people for a long time, as a symbol of the hope that we can eradicate the human tragedy of war."Kaji's beliefs are often challenged and inverted throughout the trilogy. According to the director, he said he wanted to portray the tragic dual nature that the Japanese people experienced back then.

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ibts12
1961/02/03

i had listened a lot about this movie but was unlucky that i had not seen this. This is a fascinating movie and i think that i am still feeling effect of the movie on my personality. I never imagined that even a movie can effect someone so much,and also there is feeling that what should be an excellent human condition ( as shown by Kaji and his wife) and what is prevailing human condition as we see around us. I have deep regards for all the crew of the movie who provided us a worth seeing and personality effecting movie. I dedicate all I have learned to the director of movie Masaki Kobayashi.I have given the movie 10/10 because i find no point to deduct even a single mark. I recommend all serious movie viewers to kindly must see this movie and try to learn from it.

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Polaris_DiB
1961/02/04

The Human Condition, Part III The war is over in real time, the battle is over in film time, and Kaji has regained his sanity at the expense of his entire platoon--out of 160, only three of his fellow soldiers are left after the battle, and they begin the trek across war-torn Manchuria in search of home. Despite Kaji's morals slipping--he has now gone from someone who grieved smacking a man to someone who has killed--he finds his humanist beliefs to be highly successful in the anarchic post-war land, as people are drawn by the power of his principles. He isn't able to save everybody, but he manages to travel through a deep forest (the entire movie's finest sequences, both photographically and dramatically), gain soldiers from various still-remaining guerrilla camps, and make it all the way to a village before he's sold out by the village's seductress and sent to a Russian POW camp. Unsurprisingly, there he finds that his belief in the righteousness of the Reds is just another form of the same broken system that has destroyed his character throughout the last eight hours of screen time, and, losing all morality and sense of critical thinking, he finally breaks free to die an existential death.The innocent to save this time around is Terada, a young soldier he saved from battle who worships Kaji and tries to follow Kaji to the bitter end--and bitter his end becomes. Along with Chen from the first part and Obara from the second, that makes one character per movie that Kaji reaches out for for a form of redemption, only for the system to swallow them up and cast them out like less than meat. Kaji's own personal morality, however, is the biggest failing of all, as he goes from a pacifist to someone capable of killing a co-prisoner by beating him to death with a length of chain. Kaji traces three bad decisions, and the final one is the attempt to escape, which turns out fatal. He also goes from one in the position of power over POWs to a POW himself, and incapable of communication with his superiors, unlike when he was the superior and spoke Chinese.A final plot arc that can be traced is this. In the first movie, Kaji looked slightly Western in appearance and his demeanor was often remarked upon. The same thing happens in the third movie, only this time he looks like a revolutionary leader (there is a visual comparison in the Soviet camp between him and Lenin), and everyone remarks about his beard, which stands out from all the other men and indicates a different station for him. It's interesting to note that in the first movie he's powerful because he CAN resist against authoritarianism; but in the last movie he's most powerful when authoritarianism is absent completely and the characters are faced with abject survival. Nevertheless, unable to build a new, principled community out of nothing, he has only the wide horizons of Manchuria to struggle against, and the pock-marked stations of society that continually block his path to his beloved Michiko, until nature itself forces him to realize that he has betrayed her by betraying his principles.Kaji is certainly a remarkable character throughout the 9 1/2 hour epic, but there are some ways in which his resistance is hard to swallow, considering its futility. This happens especially poorly in the second part, but in the third part it springs from necessity, which is a welcome character turn in Kaji but involves a sudden change in the supporting characters from fully developed individuals to slightly stereotypical Bad Guys, especially in the sixth section of the movie and the finale. Despite the length of the entire film, the ending still feels a little rushed and the moments of begging are so out of place they almost feel like dream sequences, though literal. Nevertheless, if you take the entire film to be a spiral, then the sixth section is where gravity takes over and the thrust of Kaji's convictions ceases all effectiveness. Thus why the third part contains not one single instance of the word "humanism" and only one feeble attempt at the word "socialism".--PolarisDiB

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