No Greater Love (1959 film)

In World War II-era Japan, Kaji marries his sweetheart Michiko despite his misgivings about the future. To gain exemption from military service, he moves his wife to a large mining operation in Japanese-colonized Manchuria, where he serves as a labor chief assigned to a workforce of Chinese prisoners.

Kaji aggravates the camp bureaucracy by implementing humane practices to improve both labor conditions and productivity, clashing with foremen, administrators, and the Kenpeitai military police. Ultimately his efforts to grant autonomy to the POWs are undermined by scheming officials, resulting in the electrocution of several prisoners and the beheading of others accused of attempted escape. When Kaji protests the brutality, he is tortured and then drafted into the army to relieve the camp supervisors of his disruptive presence.

• Tatsuya Nakadai as Kaji
• Michiyo Aratama as Michiko
• Chikage Awashima as Tōfuku Kin
• Ineko Arima as Shunran Yō
• Sō Yamamura as Okishima
• Keiji Sada as Kageyama
• Kōji Nanbara as Kao (as Shinji Nanbara)
• Akira Ishihama as Chen
• Kōji Mitsui as Furuya
• Seiji Miyaguchi as Wang Heng Li
• Eitaro Ozawa as Okazaki
• Toru Abe as Sergeant Watai
• Junkichi Orimoto as Sai
• Masao Mishima as Manager Kuroki
• Kyū Sazanka as Cho Meisan

On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 71%, based on 14 reviews, and an average rating of 7.80/10. In 2021, David Mermelstein of Wall Street Journal writes "What's astonishing is the way that Kobayashi juggles the complicated narrative, with its panoply of incidents and significant characters (friends, nemeses and everything in between), so that clarity is never compromised."[3]