The Human Condition III: A Soldier's Prayer

Meet Kaji. Kaji is Rambo, in a road movie through the horrors of post-WW2 Japan. Save for one juxtaposition, showing an orgy as representation for the ultimate human misery, this drawn out affair is horrendously heavyhanded. Kobayashi's socialist sympathies are particularly outrageous, and I never thought I should see a movie where decency is represented by Russian prison guards. Oh, and not to get you down, but when you first start checking how much time is left, you've got about 2 hours to go.

The bleakness continues. I had kind of a hard time getting into this one, I kept getting distracted and restless. A little too much trudging around in the woods and the snow, perhaps. I think I just wasn't in the mood for an unending barrage of misery and suffering. I like the first one most, but this is a slight improvement over the second. I also think that Ichikawa's Fires on the Plain handles the same situation in a more engaging way.

What should have been a touching and depressing finale, reminding us that war is bad (mmkay) by showing Kaji compromising with his ideals in order to survive, is too drawn out. First 40 minutes are great but then it drags on and on until the final scene. But I guess when you want to make a film about the biggest tragedy of your country it's only natural that you should have some troubles keeping it short.

Feels more like an (drawn-out) epilogue, than than the climactic finale, since Kaji already hit rock bottom in act 2, and what's left is a somewhat tedious "going through the motions" trying to return home. In no way as elegantly told as superior 1st act (or the lesser 2nd), and as an analogy of the broken spirit of post-war Japan, it becomes a bit too morbidly self-flagellating for my taste.

The third act really shows how the director has perfected his filmmaking with every scene even more breathtaking than the other. After parts one and two the story has become very engaging, I too was hoping to see the beautiful Michiko once again. I was afraid of getting bored because of the long running time, but none of that came true.It is also one of the bleakest things I've ever seen and now I'm depressed. Awesome ending.

...emotionally, if not plotwise... and all due attention is paid to their craft by the actors and the writers. There *are* no slow parts in these movies. If anything, the sheer richness of detail is probably too much to absorb at some points. Those who see this thing on DVD are better off than me in that regard. And it's all shot beautifully, in black and white 2.35:1 ratio (which means "really motherfuckin' widescreen"). Not everything works, but it comes close enough. More than close enough.

THCIII is never complete drivel. Hell, it's never even bad, but it feels like everything Kobayashi needed to say about war, he'd already said (in spades) in the previous two installments, making for a strained, plodding experience.

It might have one too many endings, but Kobayashi pulls out all the stops in this fittingly highly pathos-filled conclusion, when Kaji's (and Japan's, if you will) spirit is completely broken down, and Kaji has to abandon all his idealistic beliefs to survive by killing and stealing. Are the 9 hours necessary, you ask? Yes. Kobayashi wants us not only to see and understand Kaji's human condition of despair, but to feel it.

Best part of the trilogy!

the best part of this was finishing it and finally being able to free up all that hard drive space

Kobayashi didn't just want to tell us or show us, he wanted us to understand. It took him over 9 hours to do it, but he did it. It could have been done shorter and at a faster pace, but it wouldn't have been as powerful

Kaji just can't win, huh? More and more despair from Kobayashi as he rounds out his war epic, and despite some brief glimmers of hope, this is as harsh as it gets for him. Kaji is all but forced to abandon his humanity in order to survive and his moral dilemma eats away at him continually. All in all, a very fitting and powerful conclusion to the saga.

Never less than stellar in execution and the way the story is concluded does makes sense. It's just much too long and not nearly as engaging as part I. Disappointing.

I watched all three parts with months apart. I liked the first one the best and I did not care much for this one at all to be honest, it's often overly melodramatic with pompous music ruining what could've been rather nice moments. There's trudging, beating, screaming, commanding etc. all in beautiful widescreen. Its epic scope and the way it is presented doesn't do it any favors whatsoever.

Rating the trilogy as a whole - it really is greater than the sum of its parts, and pulls you in deeper and deeper as it moves along.

I don't have a whole lot to say about this film that I didn't say about the previous parts of the trilogy. But I have to reiterate the expert and beautiful direction and cinematography, and the brilliant performance by Tatsuya Nakadai. There were some more incredible scenes in this final entry, and the ending was amazing. I'm hardly an expert on Japanese cinema, but this trilogy has to be among the best ever produced from that country.

While I think the first two work just as well as stand alone films, this one is that much more effective if you've seen the preceding two. It continues with the themes from the from those two and brings them to their logical end, at least within the context of the films. More great performances and cinematography as well.

Can’t deny its great filmmaking despite its anti-soviet bias. Good trilogy.

Much too long, repetitive, and unfocused, this felt every second of its bloated 190-minute runtime. The acting in the first half is a little shaky but in the second half it is solid.

"Bekle beni Michiko... ...Vardım sayılır, izin ver beş dakika dinleneyim. Sonra yine sana doğru yürürüm. Artık elveda demek zorunda kalmayacağız. Birlikte yeni bir hayata başlayacağız bu gece. Michiko… Nihayet evime vardım! Nihayet seninleyim..."

A fittingly tragic way to round out the trilogy, with the same great filmmaking and performances, but I was a little more impatient with this one. Partly it’s that the repetition throughout the whole trilogy finally got to me, and partly it’s that some elements, like the music, bothered me more than they did previously. Still a haunting examination into the heck that war is.

My score is for all three parts combined.

Anti soviet filmmaking brings it down a couple pegs

My favorite film of the trilogy. War and his treatment by his fellow soldiers has nearly broken Kaji. But the thought of returning to Michiko fuels his desire to survive and he'll stop at nothing to make it reality. This is definitely Nakadai's best performance of the three films. Gone is the doe-eyed zombie of the first film, replaced with a realistically tormented shell of a human being.

In the waning days of the war, the Japanese soldier played by Tatsuyo Nakadai begins a long journey, attempting to go back home and resume a normal life. This turns out to be an insurmountable task. (The idea being that Japan can never return to what it was. It must die and be reborn.) It drags a bit towards the end, but overall is a satisfying conclusion to Kobayashi's 9-hour epic.

Så hele denne trilogien i en sitting sammen med Pål. Starter noe naivt, men ettersom den drar seg nærmere slutten blir den dystrere og dystrere før alt håp til slutt er ute. Den siste halvtimen er utrolig sterk og mye av cinematografien er i mesterklasse.

Final part in one of the most epic character arcs in cinema. Wasn't a fan of the interior monologues though, the first two films didn't need them

Other movies just seem kind of vapid and inconsequential right after you finish this trilogy. You'd better watch this right before bedtime, because it is going to beat any good mood you might have thought about having right out of you, and make you want to do nothing but lie down in the dark for a few hours afterwards.

Stand-in for all three of the trilogy.

The most devastating installment. By this time Kaji is completely down and out, and finds that he must abandon his morals in order to survive. Even so, he remains persistent and shows glimmers of compassion throughout, especially towards women. It is an amazing achievement that in nine hours there is no stagnation, and the saga remains in a state of definite forward progression. Through the sweep of war Kobayashi has effectively evoked the bleakest of human emotion.

After 6+ hours of watching a man lose faith in his countrymen, now we get a few more hours of watching him lose faith in his idealism. The internal monologues (and endless walking) aren't quite as engaging as in the prior two films, but we're still hoping for a better resolution. It's an exhausting yet exhilarating trilogy well worth the time spent.

O maior manifesto anti-bélico a agraciar as telas. Esse filme nos proporciona sensações e sentimentos tão díspares, do ódio ao amor, da ânsia de vômito ao horror, da incomunicabilidade ao sentimento de inadequação e impotência, tudo isso potencializado pelo rosto/olhos/olhar mais expressivo do cinema japonês, o de Nakadai e cuja parceria com Miyajima e Kobayashi o transformou numa das grandes peças do imaginário cinematográfico, como os últimos dez minutos de filme podem provar.

This third film moves the story away from the earlier film's focus on the near impossibility of being a good man in broken and corrupt systems, and starts to suggest that brokenness and corruption is the default. The difficulty in succeeding along the path of reason, goodness and empathy is not really due to the systems being broken, but more to do with a fundamental brokenness in humanity. It's deep, powerful and profoundly tragic stuff.

Taking place after the war is basically over, the third installment is in many ways the most interesting and certainly the most political of the trilogy. It disappointed me that, for all the portrayal of Japanese misdeeds, there still lacks confrontation with Imperial Japan's actual ideology; And an average scene considered individually is often hokey, but as a whole, the great intricacy and appeal of the storytelling throughout such an epic scale are truly admirable.

Giving the same score & review for each part, because it's really one long movie that only works if viewed together in sequence.

Now that I have watched the last movie, I can surely say that this is an unmatched and timeless trilogy. No other example can explain the cruelity and meaninglessness of the war and the military in a better way.