Labelled a Red, Kaji is sent to the Japanese army and is mistreated by the vets. He witnesses cruelties in the army and revolts against the abusive treatment spent on the recruit Obara; he also sees his friend Shinjô Ittôhei defecting to the Russian border.

Masaki Kobayashi returns to the frozen plains of Manchuria for the second instalment in his riveting, novelistic epic. Rapturously capturing the drudgery of infantry service in its panoramic widescreen compositions, The Human Condition continues its abrasion of the naive Kaji’s humanist convictions.