This first segment of THE HUMAN CONDITION, Masaki Kobayashi's adaptation of Jumpei Gomikawa's novel NINGEN NO JOKEN, stars Tatsuya Nakadai as Kaji. During WWII, the pacifist Kaji decides to avoid the draft by working as a labor superintendent at a mine in Manchuria. His efforts at treating the workers in a humane fashion backfire, blunted by the cruelty of their direct boss, Okazaki (Eitarô Ozawa), with only mine supervisor Okishima (Sô Yamamura) offering support. To complicate matters, 600 ill and starving Chinese POWs arrive at the camp. Naturally, Kaji takes complete responsibility for them but soon finds that Chinese prisoners resent his attempts to treat them with kindness, too traumatized by the harsh treatment they've received from the Japanese to ever trust one of them. Consequently, Kaji's unusual behavior ends up angering both the prisoners and his fellow supervisors. When, after achieving a productivity gain, he decides to take a brief vacation, his enemies arrange for some of the Chinese prisoners to escape, creating an uproar and endangering Kaji's position. Nakadai is, once again, astounding in Kobayashi's attack on the dehumanizing effect of the Pacific war on the Japanese. A brilliantly made film, it's appeal for a measure of compassion in the direst straits remains disturbing in its naked emotionality.

NO GREATER LOVE is the first chapter in director Masaki Kobayashi's HUMAN CONDITON series, a three-part epic chronicling one man's struggle to retain his humanity as he descends into the hypnotic yet harsh reality of war.

Theatrical release: June 3, 1970.

The film won the San Georgio prize at the 1969 Venice Film Festival.

Shochiku, director Masaki Kobayashi's studio, refused to let him make the controverial film until he threatened to quit and take the project elsewhere.

Japanese star Tatsuya Nakadai, best know to Western audiences as the gunman in YOJIMBO, the royal pretender in KAGEMUSHA, and the ill-fated ruler in RAN, was discovered by Kobayashi and went on to star in many of his films, becoming the director's virtual alter ego.

DVD Features:

Region 0
Keep Case
Letterbox - 2.20

Tatsuya Nakadai: Japanese Actor
Michiyo Aratama: Japanese Actor/"Kwaidan"
Chikage Awashima: 
Ineko Arima: Japanese Actor
Keiji Sada: 
Eitarô Ozawa: Japanese Actor
Sô Yamamura: Japanese Actor/Director

Masaki Kobayashi: Japanese Director, HARAKIRI (1962), KWAIDAN (1964)