Japanese Movie Database lists 537 films released in Japan during 1959. 493 feature films were released this year. Of those released by the five major studios, 167 were in color; 355 were gendai-geki, set in the modern era, and 138 were jidai-geki, set in historical times. Film critic Tadao Satō names as a significant Japanese release of the year, the first two parts of Masaki Kobayashi's The Human Condition, which would total nine hours upon its completion in 1961, Nobuo Nakagawa's The Ghost of Yotsuya, Kon Ichikawa's Fires on the Plain, Satsuo Yamamoto's The Song of the Cart, and Kihachi Okamoto's Desperado Outpost.