Announced for July 14th (a good day!), The Human Condition will finally get a proper DVD edition in the West! Directed by Masaki Kobayashi (Hara-kiri), this 9-hours-long film has inspired Kubrick’s Full Metal Jacket, and is known as one of the greatest japanese drama, starring Tatsuya Nakadai. A must-see, definitely!
Specs & cover:
SYNOPSIS:
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.
FOUR-DISC SPECIAL EDITION:
# New, restored high-definition digital transfer
# Excerpt from a rare Directors Guild of Japan video interview with director Masaki Kobayashi, conducted by filmmaker Masahiro Shinoda (Double Suicide)
# New video interview with actor Tatsuya Nakadai
# Video appreciation of Kobayashi and The Human Condition featuring Shinoda
# Japanese theatrical trailers
# New and improved English subtitle translation
# PLUS: A booklet featuring an essay by critic Philip Kemp
Retail Price: $79.95 ($63.96 on the Criterion Online Store)
Via Criterion
{ 1 comment… read it below or add one }
Hooray! I wrote an angry email to Image when they discontinued it. Then I wrote this: http://asiashock.blogspot.com/2007/01/human-condition.html
Looks like they’re going to repurpose that same Shinoda interview with Kobayashi that’s on the Harakiri bonus disk. And of course Nakadai’s always up for another interview (for a price!). God bless The Nakadai.