小林正树

Best known for his epic trilogy, "The Human Condition" ("No Greater Love" 1959, "Road to Eternity" 1959, "A Soldier's Prayer" 1961), which documents Japan's wartime atrocities as seen through the eyes of a young pacifist. Kobayashi's gift for grand widescreen compositions was also well used in his visually sumptuous, but socially critical, trilogy of period dramas--"Harakiri" (1962), "Kwaidan" (1964) and "Rebellion" (1967).