- Kaji: [discussing the pardoning of prisoners due to be executed for an alleged escape attempt] I'll be honest. There's only one chance in one hundred.
- Kyôritsu Ô: This does not concern us alone. Just as my companions stand between life and death, so do you now stand at an important crossroads.
- Kaji: You're right.
- Kyôritsu Ô: If you fail now, no one will ever trust you again, and you too will lose faith in yourself.
- Kaji: It's true.
- Kyôritsu Ô: Yet you would do nothing?
- Kaji: What can I do?
- Kyôritsu Ô: Must a man outside this barbed wire ask me such a question? Not all the Japanese working here are murderous devils. Their combined opinion objecting to this execution will be more effective than one individual alone.
- Kaji: If I'd always acted as you wanted me to there'd be no Kaji here today. I'd like to see what you'd do in my position.
- Kyôritsu Ô: You and I will both make minor mistakes. Such things can be forgiven. But an error made at a crucial moment is an unforgivable crime. Your life has been a series of errors stemming from the conflict between your work and yourself. Such errors can possibly be corrected. But this one cannot.
- Kaji: Meaning?
- Kyôritsu Ô: You'll either be revealed as a murderer wearing the mask of humanism or as one worthy of the beautiful name... "man".
- Soldier: What is a man? Not poetry or morality. He's a mass of lust and greed that absorbs and excretes.
- Kuroki Shochô: You know, Kaji, theory may be correct and yet not always apply to reality.
- Kaji: Then either the theory is wrong or it was incorrectly applied.
- Okishima: [in parting words to Kaji] I'm boarding this run-down truck, but you're trying to catch the train of humanism before it's too late. I won't stop you. You seem willing to pay the fare, no matter how high.
- [first lines]
- Michiko: This isn't like you.
- Kaji: Why?
- Michiko: You're running away. Don't you want me?
- Kaji: Of course I do.
- Michiko: And I want you, too. Yet we can't marry-...
- Kaji: How many times must I explain?
- Michiko: Because you might be called up? I wouldn't care if it was the day after. Of course I'd cry. I'd cry bitterly. But happiness only lies in marrying the one you love.
- Kaji: Alright. I'll take you back to my dormitory. You'll stay with me tonight. Alright?
- Michiko: Yes, I'll go.
- [they start trudging through the snow]
- Kaji: No, you better go back to your own dormitory... I can't take you to mine.
- Michiko: You were just testing me. You shouldn't have done that. You're a coward and a weakling! Now I see that!
- Tôfuku Kin: You plan to escape, don't you? It's impossible with all that barbed wire.
- Kyôritsu Ô: It's charged with electricity, that's all. It's men who run the electricity through it.
- Tôfuku Kin: Don't talk like that. Human beings are weak creatures. Go where you're told to go. Do what you're told to do. That's the only way to survive.
- Kyôritsu Ô: You're wrong. Man can become as strong as he wishes. He need only find the cause of his unhappiness.
- Michiko: I'm sorry about yesterday; I failed as a wife and a woman.
- [Kaji gives a refreshed sigh]
- Michiko: I couldn't sleep.
- Kaji: This is your home. You can sleep soundly here.
- Michiko: Promise you'll share both your joys and your sorrows with me.
- Kaji: Sorrow for one is enough.
- Michiko: It's not! I'm walking down the same path you are. It's okay if I lose my way. Just tell me we might get lost and take me along. I'll follow you... and do my best to keep up.
- Kaji: I understand.
- Michiko: If I don't walk fast enough, will you wait just a tiny bit for me? Just a very tiny bit?
- Kaji: Of course.
- Michiko: I'll never ask you the same question twice.
- Kaji: [furious over the recent escape of Chinese POWs under his supervision] I've given up on all of you. You said you'd wait. You might think I'm a fool, but even a fool has his limits! Another escape and you'll all go without food for three days. I'll turn your men against you and break your authority in this camp!
- Kô: You Japanese are all the same!
- Kaji: Fine! Then I'll act accordingly. All promises are hereby retracted. Now I realize there can be no trust between us.
- Kuroki Shochô: We must give them some incentive to work.
- Kaji: I think so too.
- Kuroki Shochô: What does a man in a cage dream of most?
- Kaji: Freedom., I suppose.
- Kuroki Shochô: Freedom? You must be a poet! It's women. Men dream of women. Women dream of men. What did you dream of as a bachelor? The ways of the empire? I doubt it. The way to make caged men work is to satisfy 70% of their bodily lust.
- Kaji: With what women?
- Kuroki Shochô: It's very simple. You're in charge of the comfort women. Send them in here.
- Okishima: Where you been hidin'?
- Kaji: What's wrong with you? Drunk, I see.
- Okishima: Think I got drunk and came to make trouble? I had a drink with the boss, but I'm not drunk.
- Okishima: [they enter Kaji's house and Okishima lays on the floor] I have some hot news. They're issuing commendations for the increased production. Okazaki will surely be included. I told the boss you were the only one in Labor who deserved a commendation... The boss felt the same way, but he feared that this old-timer might feel slighted... You don't think I'd feel slighted, do you?
- Kaji: Why have you suddenly turned to brute force?
- Okishima: [snickering] The boss asked the same thing. I was born a brute... Good enough?
- [Kaji shifts in contemplation]
- Okishima: How long do you plan to keep on like this?
- Kaji: Meaning what?
- Okishima: Straddling a fundamental contradiction and trying to justify it... I'm out of breath. If I'm being a nuisance, just say so and I'll back off.
- Michiko: We'll have lunch together and then go to the apple orchard. It's so wonderful, I feel as light as a balloon!
- Kaji: The investigation is over, but I don't believe you tried to escape.
- Kô: You're turning us over to the Kenpeitai?
- Kaji: I don't intend to. But you never had faith in me before. Perhaps it's best to doubt me now as well. Those men have all the power! I have none! I'll do everything I can until tomorrow evening.
- Kageyama: So you think you'd just be a shepherds dog. What's wrong with that? A good dog can lead the sheep to greener pastures and earn their gratitude.
- Kageyama: Being called up isn't a death sentence. I'm a born optimist. Unlike you, I've had my share of earthly pleasures. My only regret is not having left the seed of life in the womb of a woman I love.
- Kuroki Shochô: Your work here won't just be a desk job. It will cover all aspects of the men's lives. Rationing food, disposing of excrement from 10,000 men, handling menstrual cases among the women.
- Kaji: The women?
- Kuroki Shochô: We have comfort quarters for our men. Okishima will show you. There are about 60 Manchu women. Starting today, you're they're boss. I'm relieved you're not a bachelor. Go home now and do your duty by your wife -- but don't overdo it, eh?
- Kuroki Shochô: What is a man? Not poetry or morality. He's a mass of lust and greed that absorbs and excretes.
- Okazaki: Listen here: Lash them on with all you've got. If any Chinaman balks, kill the scum! Push them! Whip them! We need that extra 20%.
- Kuroki Shochô: Can we exchange a good, hard-working Japanese man for the life of one mere prisoner?
- Kaji: That's not the point.
- Okazaki: Workers wan't what you make them out to be in theory.
- Kawashima: They squander any surplus in idleness or gambling or pour it into women's crotches.
- Tôfuku Kin: Mr. Kaji, wanna have some fun? I won't charge you.
- Kaji: I sorry, but, I need 30 girls for the special laborers. The Labor Office will pay.
- Tôfuku Kin: They go inside barbed wire? Just like dogs - sleep together - everybody watch?
- Kaji: If you don't wish to, just say so. You don't, do you?
- Tôfuku Kin: We have no choice. It's our job. I send 30 girls tomorrow.
- Chinese POW Laborer: Master, when we be free? We all not soldier. We don't fight. Japan soldiers come - do bad things to Chinese women. Take away all men - bring here. Nothing to eat - many die. Not die - killed.
- Drunks: [singing] As ships at sea part the great whit waves, So do I part my loved one's thighs...
- Kaji: In the end, you died without seeing the dawn. But your countrymen will surely bury you by the light of the newborn day.
- Kuroki Shochô: Personally I don't approve, but the head office says to leave it to the Kenpeitai.
- Kaji: Why?
- Kuroki Shochô: Must there be a reason?
- Soldier: Why don't you answer? Very well. Today I'll make you weep like a woman. That'll be something for your wife to hear!
- Michiko's Friend: You're too much the wife, Michi. You're forgetting to be a woman.
- Michiko: What do you mean?
- Michiko's Friend: Being a wife is a kind of profession, but its the woman that men love.
- Michiko: You did everything you could. Don't you care what happens to you? Well, I do!
- Kaji: Michiko, don't torment me!
- Michiko: I'll call for help! I won't let you do it. You always go your own way, and perhaps you're right. But if you free those men, they'll kill you for sure! Please don't go! I'll follow you! I'll shout for help!
- Kaji: Michiko, if I don't, I'm no longer a human being!
- Bar Girl: Michiko - his sweetheart? Is pretty?
- Kageyama: The most beautiful girl in the world. But you're the most beautiful girl in my world.
- Michiko's Friend: Are you going to be platonic friends forever? You had the spunk to come out here to Manchuria alone. Throw yourself at him!