The Most Beautiful (1944) User Reviews

War Propaganda and Tribute to the Japanese Female Workers in Times of War

[claudio_carvalho · 6/10 · 3 October 2011]

During the World War II, the management of a war industry of optical instruments for weapons requests an effort from the workers to increase the productivity during four months. The target for male workers is an increase of 100% of the production, but the female workers, led by the dedicated Tsuru Watanabe (Yôko Yaguchi), ask the direction to surpass their goal from 50% to 70%. Along the period, the women have to overcome illness and their personal problems to complete their quote.

"Ichiban Utsukushiku" is a war propaganda and tribute to the Japanese female workers in times of war by Akira Kurosawa recommended only for fans of this great director. The plot is boring in many moments, but I liked to see the humanization of the nationalist Japanese workers and this unusual perspective from a people that were sooner defeated in the war. The winners usually write the history from their perspective and this film is a rare testimony from the Japanese point of view. Watanabe is an enlightened character with her dedication and positive leadership. My vote is six.

Title (Brazil): "A Mais Bela" ("The Most Beautiful")

"The Most Beautiful is not a major picture, but it is the one dearest to me." - Akira Kurosawa

[SamuraiNixon · 6/10 · 10 November 2010]

Propaganda films are usually of interest to me because of the situation and time period they were made in and their point of view not because of plot or sublime character development. Rarely do the characterizations, I currently cannot think of one, go beyond one or two dimensions. This is because the point of the propaganda film regardless of origin is to rally the troops and align their sense of duty. This movie is no different in that regard. But there are several key differences from the typical propaganda film that makes this film more interesting. The most interesting approach was the documentary approach Kurosawa took. Though he used actresses he did all he could to remove the artificiality of their craft to create a realistic portrait of the young girls at that time who were working in military construction. I felt this movie was effective in that regard. The tempered acting to those that are used to the Noh influenced acting of his later films. Another surprise is that this is one of two films of Kurosawa where the protagonist is a woman. The other one is No Regrets For Our Youth (1946) with Setsuko Hara.

The least interesting aspect of the film is the story. It is about a group of young women in an optical instrument factory that have to push up production to fill the need for the optical lens. While the men were asked to increase their production a hundred percent, the women were asked to do 50 percent. This insulted the women and they asked that they do a more respectable number like 66 percent (would a higher number have been insulting to the men?). The hardships created by this are numerable as the women face sickness, injury, mental breakdown and general crabbiness.

The movie is too episodic and heavy on the "team spirit" motif (not that Kurosawa had much of a choice), but it eventually settles on the titular protagonist in Tsuru Watanabe (Yoko Yaguchi) who embodies the spirit (kokoro) of an ideal worker. Her mother is dying, but her father and her mother want her to stay in the factory working so that Japan will not lose face. What is subversive is that she is a stubborn individualist. When she loses track of lens that she did not finish correcting, she goes through the monument task of finding it, and regardless of the pain it causes her, the lack of sleep and her supervisors telling her she does not need to do it – she does it anyways.

I do not agree with Donald Richie in his The Films of Akira Kurosawa when he states "Twenty years later it is almost impossible for us to think a lost lens this important." She states that she worries that lost lens might result in the death of Japanese soldiers (and possibly in her mind a battle and ultimately the war). It does not matter if she is correct in this thinking, it only matters that she feels that way. Anyone who has any degree of OCD can relate to this. Once the mind gets fixed with an idea that may haunt them it is easy to understand the monomania which consumes her until she finds her mistake.

One thing that surprised me when hearing it in the film, and the fact that Kurosawa got away with putting into the score (he mentions this in his autobiography), is the insertion of "Semper Fidelis" by John Philip Sousa.

Has anyone seen any other Kurosawa film where he uses as many horizontal wipes? After the picture he married the main actress Yoko Yaguchi. It was love at first sight. Kurosawa stated "She was a terribly stubborn and uncompromising person, and since I am very much the same, we often clashed head on." I do wonder how well they got along over the years though.

I think this film can satisfy not only Akira Kurosawa fans but fans of social realist cinema and of course those looking for propaganda films of WWII. If someone is just getting into Japanese cinema this probably could be passed on for quite a long awhile. But for completists (those reading this) they will want to see this. But then again completists want to see everything.

A mixed bag

[sharptongue · 5/10 · 14 August 2001]

I'm with MarkDClark on this one. Perhaps I found the propaganda just too strong and overbearing. I found it hard to accept that the (male) bosses of the factory were so kind and considerate, and it was the workers that really flogged themselves to meet the new production targets.

Certainly most of the acting is terrific for this cast of mostly unknowns, although Shimura is totally wasted.

And a comment on the English title. It is pretty close to being a literal translation, but does not refer to physical beauty. The theme, according to my (Japanese) wife, is about who has the most beautiful mind i.e. who among all the workers has the most purely altruistic and patriotic nature. The lead actress achieves this "title" by working all night to cover for a sick workmate, then refusing to take the next day off to rest, AND refusing to go home when her mother dies (the same day). Given this background, "The Most Beautiful" is quite misleading as an English title.

To give this film its due, there are a number of touching scenes, and the way these girls work together, at its less intense periods, is a very pleasant camaraderie. But this feeling is is much less pleasant when the feeling is more intense and is therefore whipped-up patriotic fervour.

Also, from my point of view, the story ends at an odd point. Certainly Kurosawa ends it at the moment when the propaganda purpose is achieved, but it really doesn't work fifty years later.

There are many better Kurosawa films than this one. Don't be in too much of a hurry to see it.

For Kurosawa completists only

[bymarkclark.com · 24 May 2000]

Like SANSHIRO SUGATA PART 2, this film was never released in the U.S. for political reasons. There's not any blatantly anti-American content, as in SSP2, but THE MOST BEAUTIFUL, filmed by government request, was a pro-Imperialist propaganda document.

Kurosawa gamely attempts to weave together a story which functions both as propaganda and as a tender coming-of-age story, but isn't entirely successful. This would have been a demanding proposition even for a seasoned pro, let alone a young director like Kurosawa, directing only his second feature.

The story follows a group of young girls working in an armaments factory in the latter days of WWII. The girls must increase production sharply. The girls suffer hardships of all sorts. One, Tao, emerges as the leader of the group. Through the travails of helping her coworkers meet their quotas, Tao learns courage, fortitude and compassion.

If all this sounds a little boring, that's because it is. Kurosawa's visual signatures are seldom seen. At least the performances are good, especially Yoko Yaguchi as Tao. Takashi Shimura has a thankless, do-nothing role as the foreman of the factory.

Of historical value only

[dustinkdye · 6/10 · 19 May 2013]

In a material war, what your side lacks in material, you must make up for with spirit. Or so the Japanese told themselves during the war, and that is the driving point behind "The Most Beautiful."

"The Most Beautiful" is the second film directed by internationally acclaimed Japanese filmmaker, Akira Kurosawa. Like "Sugata Sanshiro" before it, "The Most Beautiful" is a product of World War II. However, while one could characterize "Sugata Sanshiro" simply as a film with subject matter that was deemed safe for the time, "The Most Beautiful" is pure propaganda.

The film follows a group of girls working in an optic lens factory during World War II. The girls' leader is one Watanabe-san (Yoko Yaguchi, Kurosawa's wife), a kind of Japanese Rosie the Riveter (Tokyo Rosie the Riveter?). When the factory's chief, Ishida-san (Takashi Shimura, "Seven Samurai") raises the girls' quota by 50 percent, the girls gripe that it wasn't raised by 100 percent like the boys'. The girls exert themselves to exceed their quota.

The girls work to the point of exhaustion. This leads to mistakes and petty bickering. The girls play volleyball and sing patriotic songs to raise their morale.

Akira Kurosawa was one of Japan's greatest directors and storytellers. This film is distinctly Kurosawa with the director's characteristic wipes and long takes. However, as a piece of storytelling, "The Most Beautiful" is a failure. That is not to say that there are no humorous moments or likable characters, but no character experiences the kind of dynamic change that drives good fiction.

The film focuses mainly on the Watanabe character, who remains static throughout. She is the hardest, most dedicated worker at the beginning of the movie, and she remains so at the end. She sacrifices sleep to find a defective lens, and even stays away from her dying mother's bedside to work. No conflict can shake her dedication. There are minor external conflicts throughout the movie that Watanabe-san straightens out nicely by virtue of her dedication to her job.

"The Most Beautiful" is an important film in terms of historical context. Rarely do we get to see propaganda from the other side, and this film is a good illustration of extreme Japanese values at an extreme moment in Japanese history. The Japanese realized that they were at a technological disadvantage to the Allied Powers, but insisted that they could win by virtue of their spirit (apparently they weren't counting on American boys having spirit too). Militaristic slogans adorn the factory. The girls adhere to Zen Buddhist values as they emphasize hard work above all else, while the boys sing a militaristic song hoping for the "destruction of America and Britain."

While "The Most Beautiful" is an important work in a historical sense, it is unworthy of Kurosawa's later, greater films.

Subtle propaganda film from 1944

[jordondave-28085 · 7/10 · 13 October 2023]

(1944) The Most Beautiful (In Japanese with English subtitles) DRAMA

Propaganda piece of film making during the time when the Japanese declared war against America, Great Britain and China. And instead of focusing on the war itself - it focuses the story on a small group of young teenage female workers working on an optics factory, making optical lenses for the Japanese cause! That if the girls wanted to earn almost as much pay as the men then they should prove to management that they're able to increase their productivity with the men as well! While attempting to doing this, a lot of troubles and tribulations start to arise such as sicknesses, a broken leg and a death in a family- all of this as a result of living away from their families to contribute to the war effort! This is a fascinating character study from director Akira Kurosawa about a particular time in Japanese history, if one were to be curious enough about what the Japanese did during that time of war and at the same time being totally cut away from England and especially the United States, that some would sing on the streets chanting their propaganda song every day before going to work for instance and the propaganda slogans on the walls on the factory, all of this was happening while at war with Japan during WWII. And in comparison to other propaganda films such as Germany's "Triumph of the Will" and the American movie from The Duke, John Wayne "The Green Berets"- this one is probably one of the most "subtle" one of all!

Dull Propaganda

[davidmvining · 3/10 · 7 March 2022]

Can outright propaganda lead to a great film experience? I think so. Mikhail Kalatozov's Soy Cuba was nothing but propaganda for the Cuban Revolution, and it's a remarkable watch. The problem in general, I think, is that the demands of propaganda and drama are almost always diametrically opposed. Drama requires certain stakes and potentialities that propaganda is naturally resistant towards. It also requires a certain level of subtlety that is anathema to propaganda. You don't need a subtly driven message of duty to one's country, you need to hit your audience over the head with duty to Imperial Japan against America and Britain. That lack of subtlety combined with the fact that there is no antagonist really derails any sort of audience investment in the actions of the characters in Akira Kurosawa's second film, a film specifically made for propaganda purposes, funded by the Japanese government in the middle of World War II.

The story is about a group of female workers in a factory that specializes in lenses for the military. We never see an American or Brit, instead we just follow the girls as they try to deal with life during a four months period where production must increase over quotas. Something felt off about this film from the beginning when Watanabe (Yoko Yaguchi) cries to management that it's unfair that the men's quota went up by 100% but the women's quota only went up by 50%. Surely management, led by the director of the plant (Takashi Shimura), doesn't think so little of the women and their commitment to the cause. Surely they can raise the women's quota to 67%. When Watanabe comes back and tells all the girls of her successful negotiation, they all break into cheers. Do I believe that Japanese women would feel great senses of duty to the Empire and the cause? Yes, I do. Do I believe that they would endeavor to work as hard as possible? Yes. The issue is that it's all too easy. There's never a dissenting voice in the group about the work they have to do or the pressures on them. Management is kindly patriarchal and never harsh. There's no real drama here. It's all just dedication to the cause.

The bulk of the movie tracks the girls' morale against the output with a very clear relationship between them being happy and them meeting their goals over the four months. The pieces that feel like drama are a girl, Suzumura (Asako Suzuki) getting slightly sick and her father coming from the country to Tokyo to take her home with the rest of the girls crying as she leaves with her begging their forgiveness for missing work. There's another girl, Koyama (Haruko Toyama) who constantly runs a slight fever at night, but Watanabe covers for her so that she can work while protecting her from other physical activity. When the woman who runs their dorm, Mizushima (Takako Irie), leaves for a few days to try and bring Suzumura back, the other girls turn on Watanabe, with her quietly accepting the verbal assault until Toyama tells everyone the truth about her low-grade fever and how it's all for the cause of helping them meet their quota. These bits of drama amount to little of interest because the characters are so uniform and everything is brought up and forgotten in minutes. All of these girls are completely interchangeable because they have no real character or desire other than to help increase output for the cause.

The ending of the film is dominated by a single event where Watanabe, in her job as an inspector of the lenses after production, misplaced a lens she hadn't fully inspected. If she doesn't find it and it goes out, there could be Japanese lives at risk, so she spends all night looking, eventually finding it with little more than a pat on the back by management. They're happy she worked so hard and not mad at all for her for the mistake. It's all very sanitized.

And that really points to a problem with propaganda like this. None of the girls can have any question about the cause or being overworked or have problems with management. Problems have to be with people who aren't dedicated to the cause (a father figure far removed from the factory) while it can't be anyone in the factory because that could imply there are saboteurs in actual factories. Without any real antagonists, problems have to come from misunderstandings between like-minded individuals. It's just not that interesting.

The most interesting thing about the film is two-fold. The first is the look at a real optics factory in Imperial Japan. It's almost a pseudo-documentary about the manufacture of lenses in a certain way. The second is Kurosawa's eye. There are times when the film is quite nice to look at. They're fewer and further between than in Sanshiro Sugata, but they are there. There's a shot of the girls gathered round a pair of barrels that's quite striking, and there's a small moment where one of the girls goes outside in the middle of the night into the vegetable garden they keep with the moon featured prominently in very nice ways.

Otherwise, the movie is kind of a drag. There's no real drama. The characters are thin and interchangeable. This was a burgeoning artist working under a tight artistic regime that demanded a storytelling mode that wasn't really amenable to compelling cinema.

Kurosawganda!

[Quinoa1984 · 6/10 · 17 February 2024]

Seriously, The Most Beautiful is not in the mode of a particularly strident or aggressively anti-American or West saga, and I'm not even sure if America or the "Enemy" in sort of quotes are even mentioned once. In fact, the strength of the film is on Kurosawa's interest in the drama that would be found in the daily interactions of a factory like the one we see in this film, as the women are expected to reach a "Quota" in this emergency time of action. This expectation leads to what is actually more natural in such an environment: anxiety, stress, and, in what one could say is the most propagandistic aspect of the production, that work has to continue until morale improves! But hey, as Top Gun showed us, perhaps a team-spirited volleyball game is in order.

I think Kurosawa, whatever he had to do to appeal to the Studio/Governmental Powers That Be of the period, took the opportunity here to create a story that was not negatively drawn, as in we aren't seeing something that is meant to make people rush out and grab their guns or point fingers, rather it's about a collective (dare I say) positively drawn portrait of women who Can Do This (no don't insert that image of the woman with her bicep here).

It is simplistic when it comes down to it, and I would never claim this is a film that should be seen by non Kurosawa completionists (full disclosure, I came to this having only one or two of his works left to see), but I was pleasantly surprised that it is mildly engaging for the attention to performances and a kind of melancholy that the characters are fighting against. And yes, a lot of this comes down to "No, no, don't send me home because of X reason, I can keep working," and that drum is beat a number of times. And if you are wondering, there are at least half a dozen scenes of women breaking down in tears over what they may have done to (emotionally) slight a fellow co worker, and that is looked at in the film's pov as something that is like the gravest problem.

But I liked that Kurosawa depicts the issues for the characters as more interpersonal - or, I should really say in a larger sense, he let's these women like Noriko and Watanabe *be* human beings with some dimension despite the ultimate goal of this being to boost morale for the women watching at home. I could picture this as being without any personality and simply about beating the drum of "Do The Work For Your Country" and it isn't that. When a character gets sick, for example, this is looked at by the director as worthy of a sensitively drawn storyline, and it defines many of the people around this character as she struggles to try to get better - and then later when another character is sick more often than not and how this information becomes a focal point for another character.

This is all to say while Kurosawa can't help but get into repetition in the depiction of certain scenes - a group scene of laughing turning into a dramatic moment because a couple of girls are not laughing along happens at least three or four times here - he takes the scenes seriously as a dramatist, treats the emotional lives with sincerity (giving the actresses something to play, especially when one is shown as dead tired working on a project), and even crafts with his collaborators some kinetic camera movements and editing. It's a minor work that is marred by its sociological context, but an interesting one all the same.

Propaganda...and not especially entertaining or inspired

[planktonrules · 3/10 · 21 April 2009]

Before I begin, I should point out that because this is a "lesser" Kurosawa film, I don't think it's yet available from an American distributor. The version I saw was Chinese and that caused serious problems--similar to the problems I had watching SANJURO SUGATA (PART I AND II). All three of these films are early Kurosawa works and PART II and ICHIBAN UTSUKUSHIKU are clearly anti-American WWII propaganda films, so I guess it isn't surprising that it is hard to find an American distributor. But, to put it bluntly, the subtitles are a nightmare!! What they did was translate the film into Chinese and then into English. A lot is lost in the translation and many lines of dialog simply make no sense--with double-negatives and seemingly random words here and there. Some lines are "time to get relaxing" and "Disgusting, always hurt others" and "I am confident of the children". You certainly cannot blame the film makers for these flaws--just poor recently added subtitles.

The plot is about a group of mostly women who work for a war industry--precision optics for binoculars and sighting equipment. You see the workers try hard to meet quotas as well as cope with problems such as illness or family issues.

As for the quality of the film, it's not surprising that there are some serious discrepancies in the ratings. Like many great directors, I notice that some ALWAYS rate all of the directors films high--even though it's clear that Kurosawa (like most directors) was not a master director early in his career. Now I adore Kurosawa's films, but don't think I am being disloyal to his memory by disliking this film. Sure, there are some decent performances here and there, but the film is such blatant propaganda that it looks more like a recruiting film for the government--and significantly more so than the typical Hollywood products of the same time period (at least in these cases there was an attempt to entertain and tell a story). There's lots of marching, lots of young patriotic people doing team sports, lots of personal sacrifice and lots of chants about the need to work harder. As such, there really isn't much plot and the film is a chore to watch.

Now I am NOT saying that the film is without merit. Considering it's a part of our history, it should be preserved and seen. Plus devoted fans who want to see every Kurosawa film may want to see this. But just expect it to be all that watchable for the average person--they'll most likely find it all very slow and preachy.

By the way, my score of 3 reflects the poorly subtitled version I saw. With better subtitles or if you understand Japanese, the film would no doubt be a bit better.

Kurosawa's second film, also one of his weakest...

[TheLittleSongbird · 5/10 · 11 April 2014]

That doesn't mean that The Most Beautiful is a terrible film, because it isn't(in fact I haven't seen a terrible Akira Kurosawa film, and this is trying not to be biased). It just falls short compared to a lot of Kurosawa's- one of my favourite directors- best work, Seven Samurai, Ran and Ikiru being my favourites. For an early Kurosawa film it looks great and is strikingly shot, if a little ordinary-looking compared to what Kurosawa did later. The music is appropriately rousing and patriotic and the acting is very good indeed, particularly from Yoko Yagushi. The cast do work very well together which makes the women's plight more relatable, and there are agreed a number of touching scenes. Kurosawa's direction is mixed here, it is competent but with a sense that he was still finding his feet understandably. The technical skill is there if not the story compared to later. The story is very well-intended but could have been much more compelling, some of the pacing plods which can make the story dull. The film also does a far better job in the more sensitive parts than the intense ones, the latter of which getting rather heavy-handed mainly with having one main theme that repeats itself a lot that it feels too much. The script is not as tightly structured or as easy-to-fully-comprehend than most Kurosawas, far from bad but with not as much of an emotional core as one would want. And it's not helped by the subtitles, that are stilted and with a sense of them being written afterwards without always fitting very well. Lastly, it was sad to see one of Japan's finest actors Takashi Shimura being given so little to do. In conclusion, nowhere near among Kurosawa's best but still should be seen at least for interest value. 5/10 Bethany Cox

'Rosie The Riveter', Japanese Style...

[xerses13 · 8/10 · 23 March 2010]

Ichiban utsukushiku (1944) 'THE MOST BEAUTIFUL' is Akira Kurosawa's tribute to Japanese Women who supported the war effort (WWII) at the 'Home-Front'. It is analogous to films made in other countries at that time. The nations that participated in the conflict all called upon Women too help in the manufacturing process. Some successfully like Great Britain, Soviet Russia and the U.S.A. Others like China, Fascist Italy or Nazi Germany less so, with Imperial Japan falling in between. Not from lack of effort, but of resources.

Like LETTERS FROM IWO JIMA (2006) the film shows the war from the Japanese perspective. This is a propaganda film. That does not invalidate its message compared with the other participants in the conflict, it is just another point of view, made in wartime. The Women work in a optical factory which could pass for a 'Dickensian Workhouse'. Their work is important and they know it. The pressure of increased productivity with limited resources is clearly shown. It effects them all emotionally, physically and psychologically. The Men of the factory for the most part are unseen drones, except for the managers of the plant. They take a sensitive interest in the well being of their Female staff, without taking advantage of them. The War is largely unseen, but you know it is out there and getting closer all the time. The Director could see the end was coming, even if the Imperial General Staff could not.

The principal cast of Women actors are largely unknowns whose careers were brief before and after this film. They are all convincing in their roles and give believable characterizations. The only 'Star' recognizable too Western audiences would be the great TAKASHI SHIMURA. SHIMURA was a 'jake of all trades' for the TOHO Studios, Japan. His acting range spanned Business Men, Criminals, Detectives, Samurai and Scientists. Films of note, SHICHININ NO SAMURAI (1954) 'The Seven Samurai', GOJIRA (1954) 'Godzilla', CHIKYU BOEIGUN (1957) 'The Mysterians' and YOJIMBO (1961) 'Yojimbo, The Bodyguard'.

Those who have TCM or a well stocked local Library can take advantage of the films of AKIRA KUROSAWA and they should.

Taikutsu na...

[gghgm · 3/10 · 23 November 2007]

This film is just a tedious attempt at morale boosting and not worthy of the assembled talent who produced it. The English subtitles were horrible. They appear to be translations of Chinese translations! The principal characters are all "assigned" Chinese names when they clearly refer to each other in the dialogue by their Japanese names. Kurosawa-san must have been recruited to aid the war effort which, by 1944, was obviously going badly but even his prodigious talent couldn't save this project. The acting is spotty as well. The main characters are credible but they are surrounded by a wooden supporting cast. Perhaps if the subtitles/translations were better, the film would have been more palatable- but I doubt it.

the Japanese "Twelve-O'clock High"

[dunhamrc · 12 September 1998]

This is a great movie - a must-see. I saw it without subtitles, and my Japanese wasn't good enough to catch most of the dialog, but the raw emotional power of the cast and of the imagery made it easy to follow - completely engrossing, in fact. The story is about a group of women factory workers in WWII Japan, and how each one must overcome whatever personal hardship they face to help the group succeed. The sense of being swept up in a titanic struggle, and the almost superhuman selflessness and group cohesion that that breeds, are the same themes treated in "Twelve-O'clock High". The two movies would make an enlightening double feature. One image sticks with me: although it's not focused on, throughout the movie you see the women carefully taking off their shoes and placing them neatly by the door as they come in to the dormitory, and you see them carefully put them on as they leave. During one scene, when a girl is returning from the hospital, everyone rushes to greet her. Kurosawa cuts to a shot of the shoes, as they are thoughtlessly trampled by the women eager to meet their friend.

For a propaganda film, not at all bad

[pdbarrett · 4/10 · 26 May 2011]

It was interesting to read other people's views on this - I thought it was rather a good film. Of course, it's a long way from Kurosawa's best, but I think it's the best of his early (pre-Drunken Angel) films, and quite as good as one or two of his later ones (eg Scandal and The Quiet Duel; and maybe Drunken Angel and The Idiot, which were cut to ribbons by the studios).

Of course it's a wartime propaganda film, but the propaganda is mostly either implicit in the story itself, or part of the background (it takes place in a munitions factory, so of course there are propaganda posters up on the walls, and of course there are messages from the bosses encouraging the workers to produce as much as possible - it would be unnatural if there weren't), and Kurosawa concentrates on telling that story. The result is that, for me, the propaganda never intrudes.

Unappealing Mash Up of Wartime Propaganda and Histrionic Nonsense.

[net_orders · 3/10 · 13 August 2016]

Viewed on DVD. Subtitles = six (6) stars; score = three (3) stars; restoration = two (2) stars. Any movie that survives a major war does not automatically qualify as being worth watching during peacetime. Especially this one! Director Akira Kurosawa delivers an overly-long, slow-moving, and darn right silly movie (as he often did after the war) using a script filled with contrived trivia and inflated artifacts (especially long blank stares by the lead actresses). Whether this film reflects wartime conditions that existed for Japanese women factory workers (who are shown to be in effect slaves) seems debatable given how events are depicted. Kurosawa tells a tale of a major optics factory apparently vital to Japan's war effort brought almost to a standstill with the temporary loss of one or two workers. Get real! Lead actresses (and there are quite a few) seem to have been given minimal direction--they all but eat the scenery in their quests for melodramatic over achievement. The director/editor seems fixated on showing redundant scenes especially of workers marching. (The viewer can't help but wonder if less marching by Kurosawa's cast would result in much more time to meet/exceed the ever higher production quotas demanded by Kurosawa's factory management!) Cinematography (narrow screen, black and white) is a bit hard to judge given the often minuscule restoration (see below). Inter-scene lighting is highly variable (due in part to using stock footage and/or inferior film stock?). Music consists mostly of monotonous marching band flutes and drums and repetitive children songs. Subtitles are close enough. Unlike many semi/not restored films, the opening credits (which begin by announcing that this is a propaganda film) seem to be in near mint condition. But thereafter, things go down hill almost immediately. There are plenty of wear/dirt marks, splicing artifacts, and fuzzy scenes to be found throughout the movie. Plus age-related deterioration can be seen in just about all fade-to/from-dark transitions. (The film looks far older than it actually is.) Typical "restoration" on the cheap when a film is expected not to sell many copies. Bottom line: This one should have been left in the studio's film vault for film students (in search of dissertation threads) to pick apart. WILLIAM FLANIGAN, PhD.

WW2 propaganda for Akira Kurosawa

[Leofwine_draca · 5/10 · 1 August 2017]

THE MOST BEAUTIFUL is a WW2 propaganda movie from Japan. It has few redeeming values apart from a level of realism you don't normally see in such productions, but the story is very slight and the events depicted are so slowly-paced as to make it a chore to sit through. The story follows a group of female workers at a factory making periscopes, and it narrows in on a handful of characters as they encounter conflict and personal struggle in their bid to do their best for their country. Sentimental stuff, then, but with more grit than syrup. This is only of interest for the presence of director Akira Kurosawa, forced to do his bit for the war cause, but compared to Hitchcock's rival wartime propaganda, this is low key and relatively uninteresting.

Worth watching closely

[matt605 · 10/10 · 12 December 2010]

If you study this film then you can learn much about Japan, World War Two, and Akira Kurosawa. This is the only film he made that was meant to be propaganda, but his earlier film Sanshiro Sugata actually played to themes more useful to a nation at war. If you make a film that matches the zeitgeist of your country, that's great. But be forewarned that your country's government may then ask you to inspire the people to fight on, and you would then make a propaganda film, which is what may have happened to Kurosawa. This fact shouldn't make you reject The Most Beautiful because cinema in all countries in WW2 was used in the war effort. Japan was no exception.

Kurosawa in interviews after the war revealed his dislike of the government censors. Toward the end of the war, Japanese were preparing for the possibility of the entire nation receiving an order from the Emporer to commit suicide, called "the Honorable Death of the 100 Million." Kurosawa didn't dispute that he would have followed the Emporer's directive, but did say that he and his colleagues jokingly agreed they would first go and kill all the censors.

The plot and action of the film is described elsewhere. There are things to watch for carefully as you view the film.

If you're in a university setting then there is one absolute advantage that you have -- access to a professor of management and organizational behavior. Why? Well, The Most Beautiful is practically a docu-drama on management science. The scientific methods of production and organizational management are more clearly documented in this film than in any other I can recall, anywhere. It also compares things like Stakhanovism to Hawthorne experiment studies and displays the early beginnings of total quality management and quality assurance methods later developed by Deming. If these terms are unfamiliar to you, then you need a professor of management science to watch the film and help you see what Kurosawa was putting in. Then consider that the film was released to the Japanese public, which assured that it would be viewed by American military intelligence organizations and the OSS.

Some specifics to look for in no particular order: the background music includes a sampling from Semper Fi, the USMC theme song; there's little talk of enemies but when they're mentioned, the British are named ahead of Americans; the factory managers back a young woman's rejection of her father's instruction to come home and take the place of his deceased wife, which is a break with tradition (almost the equivalent of bra-burning in wartime Japan); and, backgrounds are set in wartime Japan and reveal details of the industrial infrastructure.

There are many films by Kurosawa that feature sickness and health care in their plots. This one, Drunken Angel, Ikuru, The Quiet Duel, and Red Beard come to mind. Dodes' ka-den and Ran might also qualify as their main characters suffer from afflictions of the mind. Kurosawa's biggest films are Rashomon and The Seven Samurai, but his films with health and medicine in the plot are more prevalent in his career.

One caveat to The Most Beautiful is that it is long and does reflect the tastes of Japanese audiences who like their drama very obvious. Forgive yourself if you find Japanese drama becomes too boring in some places. The films can be very enjoyable and interesting, provided you approach them with the understanding that they are far different from what we experience as entertainment today.

"Now,In a battle of material might,the more material you have,the more material is emphasized."

[morrison-dylan-fan · 5/10 · 22 May 2021]

After enjoying his swift solo directing debut Sanshiro Sugata (1943-also reviewed) I decided to discover who Akira Kurosawa thought was the most beautiful.

View on the film:

Marching onto the screen with an "Attack and destroy the enemy" opening title card, the screenplay by writer/directing auteur Akira Kurosawa lays the propaganda on thick, as the women workers request for the factory bosses to raise their demand for a increase in production quota to be higher then the original 50% increase ordered,being met by dialogue of all the women and the bosses saying that females are too weak to match the 100% production increase their male co-workers are asked to do (who are presented as silent macho types, who do the job with ease,no questions asked!)

Not raising a murmur about the workers getting an increase in pay or better working conditions,Kurosawa has the main romance of the film,be a love of keeping the war machine rolling, pulling over-ripe Melodrama from Watanabe breaking down at the fear of she and her co-workers not hitting their production target for a war they are blindly loyal towards (with even a broken foot not slowing a worker down from showing she remains faithful to the war effort.)

Starting a major trend he would continue with,in the cast and crew living (and working) in a real factory called Nippon Kogaku in Hiratsuke, director Kurosawa (who also met his future wife, actress Yoko Yaguchi on the set) & cinematographer Joji Ohara drill a militarism atmosphere into proceedings.

Kurosawa's distinctive screen-wipes land on wide-shots of the factory workers,giving them the appearance of a army marching forward on the production line,backed by the brass army score from his regular composer of this period Seiichi Suzuki ,as the factory workers declare that the most beautiful thing they see,is building for the war.

Valuable as insight into the supreme pliability of human beings

[Local Hero · 27 March 2010]

Typical of Japanese war-time propaganda, the film suggests that Japan's fascist ideology, its inculcation of fanatical obedience, its vast perpetration of unthinkable atrocities in a systematic manner, and its aggressive military expansionism can all be replaced by Japan's supposed victimization. Rather telling in this respect is the song that the girls repeatedly sing to boost morale, a song that recalls that barbarian Mongol conquerors once tried to invade Japan from China, but that the perpetrators of such heinous deeds of aggression could not possibly co-exist under the same sky with the innocent and pure Japanese-- this, of course, is being sung during a war that was begun when an utterly unprovoked Japan invaded China and slaughtered untold numbers of its population mercilessly.

All of this would be something that one could simply shrug off as the past blindness of war, but films such as these are more disturbing today than, say, Triumph of the Will because while Germany was forced to confront the horrors it had unleashed upon the world, most Japanese films even today (and textbooks for that matter) still tend to view Japan as a victim in the war (see, for instance, Kurosawa's own Rhapsody in August so many decades later). Assisted by the policies of the American post-war occupation, Japan has never had to come to terms with what it did to the planet, and what in human history can possibly more disturbing than a lack of accountability for the worst sins humanity can commit? And by the way, I say all of this despite the fact that Kurosawa is probably my favorite director.

War Propaganda but by Kurosawa

[Hitchcoc · 5/10 · 21 March 2015]

The Japanese were falling on hard times militarily when this was made. I suspect the spartan nature of the society was attributable to desperation. This is a propaganda film, showing how a group of children are robbed of their childhood to make lenses for optical equipment. Of course, they march and sing patriotic songs and seem to love their work. The sad thing is that they become so caught up in their basic brainwashed states that they are willing to become little automatons. Anyone who doubts the effort is shamed in front of her peers. I suppose Kurosawa saw something in the imperialist tactics of his leaders, but this film is purely self serving. One positive. He got to hone his craft. Visually it is quite well done. But dull as a rock.

Pretty dry

[gbill-74877 · 3/10 · 7 August 2020]

This film was interesting to check out because it's Kurosawa, and for the little window it gives into Japan in 1944, not because it's an objective piece of realist cinema, but because of the extraordinary context. The film is geared towards recognizing the Japanese equivalent of America's 'Rosie the Riveter,' as well as boosting their morale. The women in this case work in the manufacturing facility to make lenses for targeting weapons, and take on a difficult production goal (though it's made clear that it's still less than their male counterparts lol). Over the course of the film, we see their progress against this goal, often literally in the form of a graph, making for a pretty dry story and eroding interest pretty quickly.

In a plodding, heavy-handed way, the film delivers the message to act selflessly for the greater good, to work hard to achieve factory targets, to maintain high quality, to remain cheerful, to understand that even away from combat, they are on a battlefield of their own, and to remember their homes and the homeland they're all collectively fighting for. Notably, it also messages for them to trust their superiors, including the men who oversee their work condescendingly, tut-tutting over what they're doing (including long-time Kurosawa collaborator Takashi Shimura). It's what any nation does when at war, emphasizing sacrifice, obedience, and the greater good of the nation.

"The Most Beautiful" in this case refers to the beauty of these virtues, and I like how the film shows the positive contribution of women. I don't mind that it's trying to drill all of its messages home to viewers, but there just wasn't enough to the story to keep it interesting. The soil each worker brings from home and puts in a communal garden leads to the film's strongest scene, where we get a sentimental flashback into one of their hometowns, nostalgically reminding the target audience of the home country they were all fighting for, and what they would return to when the war was over. It was pretty touching, as was the quiet determination of one of them to continue working after hearing her mother had died. Unfortunately these moments were too small and came too late, the first at the 65 minute point.

I'm glad I saw the film more to imagine what the 34 year old director was going through at the time, and to see the woman he would marry, Yoko Yaguchi, who plays the leader of the workers. She would be with him until her death four decades later. The most beautiful for Kurosawa, indeed.

2.14.2024

[EasonVonn · 5/10 · 14 February 2024]

Akira Kurosawa made it for his wife and the second of his career. But I didn't expect it to be a huge hit and totally hard to chew on.

Militaristic overtones aside, the drama in this one can be held up as mediocre and uninspired, and aside from Akira Kurosawa's own brilliant audiovisual approach, it can almost be described as a disaster of a film. If you compare it to the emotional evocation of the characters in the film, you can't beat Bergman at all, and if you compare it to what poetry there is in the dull plot of a boring movie, you can't beat Tarkovsky. This is not a comment on its militaristic overtones, but rather on the actual lack of performance. But I'm still a little shocked by the use of jump cuts even before Godard.

But if you look at it in terms of the film's inherent thoughtfulness, it's a total loss. All of the women's "beauty" in the film is predicated on a militaristic context, and any discussion of beauty under this premise becomes a reproduction of militarism over and over again. What is even more unbearable is the one-sided and empty image of women in the film, worthy of a male director to write women's movies, is it only Antonioni in this point can be a little bit to restore the status of the male director's posture.

The Best

[max von meyerling · 8/10 · 9 March 2003]

The best propaganda movie ever made. Every element of Japanese artfulness has gone into this picture. The finest in visual composition and dramatic exposition have both been harnessed to create this film, but it is not art but propaganda. It's impossible not to regard this film without realizing that this was meant to manipulate the population to suffer and sacrifice in order for the war machine to fight, kill and conquer. Compare Ichiban Utsukushiku to the German Jew Suss or the un-released Titanic or the American Hangmen Also Die or Mrs. Miniver or any of the combat films made by the waring nations and they are dreadfully crude by comparison. Maybe it can only be approached by something like Minnelli's The Clock for overall design concept and subtlety of purpose. Then again The Clock isn't full blown propaganda like Kurosawa's Ichiban Utsukushiku. How could the director, Kurosawa, (it was his second credited film) not become the great International master he became?

Good: Visuals - Bad: Story

[Hoagy27 · 3/10 · 26 August 2010]

This early Kurosawa film has a definite split personality: lovely visuals, lousy story. The story is a standard, forgettable, wartime, stiff-upper-lip heart-warmer. Although Kurosawa also wrote the script it was, after all, 1944 and one of his first pictures. On the other hand, the directing, sets, cinematography and other visuals are quite good. Bits of real life extrude through the soap,scenes and sets are framed artistically and the faces...! One could find lots of worse things to do with 85 minutes. I suggest watching it with the sound & subtitles off. My three star rating is solely for the visuals. Everything else gets nothing.

The War Effort

[crossbow0106 · 31 July 2011]

A curious film from Kurosawa, given what came later, this is a nationalist film about a group of young women who are working at an optical instruments factory who are given the task to greatly increase productivity for the good of the country and the war effort. It shows them rarely at play, mostly very focused at work. Takako Irie plays the dorm mother, a somewhat sympathetic character. This film is more inherently Japanese than most of Kurosawa's later work, its almost a propaganda film. However, there is also some heart in the characters, and that is what makes it a recommended film. You sense the young ladies anguish over being sick and having family difficulties, making them unable to work. So, not essential viewing but still watchable and Kurosawa fans should check it out.