# The Human Condition I: No Greater Love (人間の條件 第1部純愛篇/第2部激怒篇)
**The Human Condition I: No Greater Love** (*Ningen no jōken* 第一部純愛篇、第二部激怒篇) is a 1959 Japanese black-and-white war drama directed by [Masaki Kobayashi](https://www.edgepedia.org/masaki-kobayashi) (小林正樹), the first installment of his six-part antiwar epic *The Human Condition*, adapted from Junpei Gomikawa's (五味川純平) best-selling novel. Released by Shochiku on January 15, 1959, it combines the first two parts of the novel cycle, the "Pure Love" (純愛篇) and "Rage" (激怒篇) chapters, and runs 206 minutes.[1](https://www.shochiku.co.jp/cinema/database/03208/) It stars Tatsuya Nakadai (仲代達矢) as Kaji, an idealist who takes a labor-management post in occupied [Manchuria](https://www.edgepedia.org/manchuria) in exchange for exemption from conscription, and it follows his failed attempt to treat Chinese forced laborers humanely under a system built to exploit them.[1](https://www.shochiku.co.jp/cinema/database/03208/) • [2](https://cinemaplus.shochiku.co.jp/titles/detail/182/)
| Key fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| Japanese title | 人間の條件 第一部純愛篇、第二部激怒篇 (*Ningen no jōken: Dai-ichi-bu Jun'ai-hen, Dai-ni-bu Gekido-hen*)[1](https://www.shochiku.co.jp/cinema/database/03208/) |
| Release | January 15, 1959, distributed by Shochiku; black and white[1](https://www.shochiku.co.jp/cinema/database/03208/) |
| Runtime | 206 minutes for Parts 1 and 2 combined; Part 1 alone runs 105 minutes and Part 2 runs 101 minutes[1](https://www.shochiku.co.jp/cinema/database/03208/) • [2](https://cinemaplus.shochiku.co.jp/titles/detail/182/) • [3](https://img-lib.musabi.ac.jp/search/index.php/document/detail-work/421) |
| Source | Junpei Gomikawa's best-selling novel, written from his own wartime army experience[1](https://www.shochiku.co.jp/cinema/database/03208/) |
| Place in the series | First of six parts, released in three installments between 1959 and 1961; the complete work runs over nine and a half hours[2](https://cinemaplus.shochiku.co.jp/titles/detail/182/) • [4](https://www.criterion.com/films/2106-the-human-condition) |
| Lead cast | Tatsuya Nakadai as Kaji, Michiyo Aratama as his wife Michiko, with Chikage Awashima, Ineko Arima, Keiji Sada, So Yamamura, and Eitaro Ozawa[1](https://www.shochiku.co.jp/cinema/database/03208/) • [4](https://www.criterion.com/films/2106-the-human-condition) |
| Reception | 73% on the Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer from 15 reviews, with a 94% audience score[5](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_human_condition_i_no_greater_love) |
## Spoilers
### Story
The action is set in Manchuria in Shōwa 18 (1943). Kaji, an employee of the South Manchurian Steel Company who doubts the war and loves his wife Michiko, accepts a post as labor supervisor at the Roakō (老虎嶺) mine on the condition that he be exempted from conscription.[1](https://www.shochiku.co.jp/cinema/database/03208/) • [2](https://cinemaplus.shochiku.co.jp/titles/detail/182/)
**The mine.** Conditions at the mine are dire: local workers are driven through brutal labor while the site supervisor Okazaki (小沢栄太郎) and his clique skim their wages. With help from his colleague Okishima (山村聡) and the local clerk Chen (石浜朗), Kaji fights the corruption and pushes to improve working conditions, and the mine reaches its assigned production target.[1](https://www.shochiku.co.jp/cinema/database/03208/) • [6](https://www.allcinema.net/cinema/pdf/138648)
**The "special workers."** [Headquarters](https://www.edgepedia.org/headquarters) then orders an emergency 20 percent increase in output and sends 600 Chinese prisoners of war to the mine as "special workers" (特殊工人). The half-dead prisoners are housed inside an electrified wire fence and assigned prostitutes to spur their labor; in these conditions a love grows between the worker Kao (南原伸二) and the prostitute Yang Chun Lan (有馬稲子).[1](https://www.shochiku.co.jp/cinema/database/03208/) Kaji negotiates with the special workers to achieve the best possible state under the circumstances and meets the 20 percent target, but an escape plot involving the Korean fixer Chō Meisan (山茶花究) ruins his long-awaited leave with Michiko. Chen, tormented by conscience, throws himself onto the 3,300-volt fence and dies.[1](https://www.shochiku.co.jp/cinema/database/03208/)
**The beheadings.** Okazaki's inhuman treatment provokes a protest by seven special workers led by Kao. Military police Sergeant Watai (安部徹) sentences the seven to beheading by [Japanese sword](https://www.edgepedia.org/japanese-sword). As the executions proceed one by one, Kaji, shaken, finally cries out "Stop!" amid the shouts of the workers, and the execution is halted. What awaits him is a savage kempeitai beating for defying the military; released half dead, he is handed an order releasing him from his post and a call-up notice for immediate conscription.[1](https://www.shochiku.co.jp/cinema/database/03208/)
## Production background
The film opens a project Kobayashi had pursued for years. Gomikawa's novel, based on the author's own experience as a soldier, was an unprecedented best seller, and Kobayashi, a wartime-generation director who had served in the army himself, described his aim as re-examining through the character of Kaji the experience of a generation that "could only survive that era by cooperating with the war against its own will."[1](https://www.shochiku.co.jp/cinema/database/03208/) • [2](https://cinemaplus.shochiku.co.jp/titles/detail/182/) Shochiku's own account records that the series took roughly four years of planning, preparation, and production, used more than 20,000 performers, and consumed an enormous budget; the six parts were released as three installments between 1959 and 1961, each a commercial hit.[2](https://cinemaplus.shochiku.co.jp/titles/detail/182/)
Kobayashi wrote the screenplay with Zenzo Matsuyama (松山善三). Yoshio Miyajima (宮島義勇) was the cinematographer, Chuji Kinoshita (木下忠司) composed the music, and Shukei Hirataka (平高主計) designed the sets.[1](https://www.shochiku.co.jp/cinema/database/03208/) • [3](https://img-lib.musabi.ac.jp/search/index.php/document/detail-work/421) The film was shot in TohoScope-format widescreen.[4](https://www.criterion.com/films/2106-the-human-condition)
For Nakadai, the role was a breakthrough. The Tokyo-born stage-trained actor had been discovered by Kobayashi in 1953 while working as a shop clerk, and *The Human Condition* became one of the performances for which he is most often remembered.[4](https://www.criterion.com/films/2106-the-human-condition)
## Themes and interpretation
The film's central figure is a moral idealist turned participant in the system he opposes. Kaji argues for improved labor conditions in the name of efficient production, collides with the site supervisors, and finds that his ideals shatter against a mine ruled by bribery and torture.[2](https://cinemaplus.shochiku.co.jp/titles/detail/182/) • [7](https://cinema.ne.jp/article/detail/84660) The film scholar Mitsuyo Wada-Marciano's field has described the trilogy as systematically examining, from a humanitarian perspective, three of the great "isms" of the twentieth century, industrialism, militarism, and [Stalinism](https://www.edgepedia.org/stalinism), through Kaji's conscience.[8](https://lmsspada.kemdiktisaintek.go.id/pluginfile.php/479326/mod_folder/content/0/New%20History%20of%20Japanese%20Cinema-%20A%20Century%20of%20Narrative%20Film%20%28%20PDFDrive%20%29.pdf?forcedownload=1) Japanese commentary has emphasized that the film's horror lies in showing that war is not moved by villains alone: ordinary, decent people are swept along by totalitarianism, and the question it poses is how a mechanism that denies humane life can be stopped.[9](https://cinema.ne.jp/article/detail/85739) • [10](https://nanaelibrary.jpn.org/movie/nihon/1959_n.html)
## Place in the trilogy and reception
Parts 1 and 2 were followed by *The Road to Eternity* (Parts 3 and 4, 1959) and *A Soldier's Prayer* (Parts 5 and 6, 1961), completing a work that runs over nine and a half hours in total.[2](https://cinemaplus.shochiku.co.jp/titles/detail/182/) • [4](https://www.criterion.com/films/2106-the-human-condition) Shochiku credits the series, applauded both at home and abroad, with making Kobayashi's name known worldwide.[1](https://www.shochiku.co.jp/cinema/database/03208/) [The Criterion Collection](https://www.edgepedia.org/the-criterion-collection) released the complete trilogy on Blu-ray and DVD in 2021 as Spine #480, at 575 minutes in a 2.39:1 aspect ratio, with an essay by the critic Philip Kemp.[4](https://www.criterion.com/films/2106-the-human-condition) On Rotten Tomatoes the first installment holds a 73% Tomatometer from 15 reviews and a 94% audience score; the Wall Street Journal's review praised the way Kobayashi juggles the complicated narrative so that clarity is never compromised.[5](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_human_condition_i_no_greater_love)
Reported runtimes for the combined first installment differ across sources: Shochiku's database gives 208 minutes, the National Film Archive of Japan lists a 206-minute screening, and an Iwanami Shoten volume on Kobayashi records 203 minutes.[1](https://www.shochiku.co.jp/cinema/database/03208/) • [11](https://www.nfaj.go.jp/wp-content/uploads/a619a6bbade20707d02d8f37b80d9233.pdf) • [12](https://gensanart.com/masaki-kobayashi-110/)
## References
1. [人間の條件 第一部純愛篇、第二部激怒篇, Shochiku film database](https://www.shochiku.co.jp/cinema/database/03208/)
2. [人間の條件 第1部 純愛篇, Shochiku Cinema Plus](https://cinemaplus.shochiku.co.jp/titles/detail/182/)
3. [人間の條件 第2部 激怒篇, Musashino Art University Museum & Library image library](https://img-lib.musabi.ac.jp/search/index.php/document/detail-work/421)
4. [The Human Condition (1959), The Criterion Collection](https://www.criterion.com/films/2106-the-human-condition)
5. [The Human Condition I: No Greater Love, Rotten Tomatoes](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_human_condition_i_no_greater_love)
6. [人間の條件 第1部純愛篇/第2部激怒篇, allcinema](https://www.allcinema.net/cinema/pdf/138648)
7. [金曜映画ナビ〈戦後80年 終戦記念特集〉, CINEMAS+](https://cinema.ne.jp/article/detail/84660)
8. [A New History of Japanese Cinema: A Century of Narrative Film](https://lmsspada.kemdiktisaintek.go.id/pluginfile.php/479326/mod_folder/content/0/New%20History%20of%20Japanese%20Cinema-%20A%20Century%20of%20Narrative%20Film%20%28%20PDFDrive%20%29.pdf?forcedownload=1)
9. [「生きていてほしい」と願うことから, CINEMAS+](https://cinema.ne.jp/article/detail/85739)
10. [日本映画レビュー─1959年](https://nanaelibrary.jpn.org/movie/nihon/1959_n.html)
11. [国立映画アーカイブ開館記念 program PDF](https://www.nfaj.go.jp/wp-content/uploads/a619a6bbade20707d02d8f37b80d9233.pdf)
12. [映画監督 小林正樹 生誕110年, ゲンさんの画帳](https://gensanart.com/masaki-kobayashi-110/)
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*Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Films and standalone screen works › Individual films by title and year › War and historical films (individual works) › War action and adventure › War action films released through 1999 › Released 1934 to 1962*
*Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026*
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