Sunday, January 25, 2026 at 1:00 PM
Los Feliz Theatre, Los Angeles
### **ABOUT THE FILM:** *In Japanese with English subtitles.* After the Japanese defeat to the Russians, Kaji (Tatsuya Nakadai) 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. FORMAT: 35mm DISTRIBUTOR: Janus Films COUNTRY: Japan ### **ABOUT THE EVENT:** Masaki Kobayashi’s mammoth humanist drama is one of the most staggering achievements of Japanese cinema. 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.