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The Human Condition II: The Road to Eternity

Ningen no joken II (The Human Condition II: The Road to Eternity)

1959

Masaki Kobayashi

Tatsuya Nakadai, Michiyo Aratama, Kei Sato, Minoru Chiaki ...

8.1

2,729

War. Drama Second World War. Forced to join the japanese army, Kaji is sent to Manchuria. There, he becomes friends with a soldier who sympathizes with communism. After a visit from his wife, Kaji is sent to the battlefield, from which many of his friends will never come back.

	Author	Review
United States	Aaron Hillis Village Voice	"[It] indeed feels like 'The Road to Eternity' (...) Kobayashi employs every battlefield cliché"	NEG
United States	Matthew Connolly Slant	"[Its] moments ground 'Human Condition‘s grand message in painfully human terms, making this prolonged journey an ultimately enriching and worthwhile one (…) Rating: ★★★★ (out of 4)"	POS
United States	A. O. Scott The New York Times	"[It is] amazingly powerful in its emotional sweep and the depth of its historical insight."	POS
United States	Kevin Thomas Los Angeles Times	"It is stupendous not only as a kind of ultimate indictment of man's inhumanity to man but is also virtually unique as a massive reminder of a defeated nation's folly and evil to itself"	POS
United States	David Fear Time Out	"Masaki Kobayashi’s epic, exhausting examination of one man’s spiritual descent is an extraordinary achievement by any standard (…) Rating: ★★★★ (out of 5)"	POS
United States	Grady Hendrix Slate	"An essay on military brutality that makes Kubrick's 'Full Metal Jacket' look like a church picnic"	POS

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