Cebalord Very best movie i ever watch

Evengyny Thanks for the memories!

Lightdeossk Captivating movie !

Dana An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

WILLIAM FLANIGAN 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.

TrappedInTheCinema https://trappedinthecinemablog.wordpress.com/2016/07/21/the-most- beautiful-1944/In 1943, Akira Kurosawa's debut film 'Sanshiro Sugata' was released. A very competent and very promising film, it contained elements of Japanese wartime propaganda. With his second film 'The Most Beautiful' (or 'Ichiban Utsukushiku' if you're feeling particularly pretentious), those elements of propaganda were turned up to eleven. The 'plot' takes place in a wartime factory, populated predominantly by female volunteers, producing optics for aircraft. There are various strands that run throughout the film. The quota of production that the women need to make goes up 50%, and so they complain. They wanted it to go up by two-thirds! Every little thing to help the mother nation. One women makes a faulty lens, and becomes distressed that she may cause a Japanese plane to crash. Another falls ill and is distraught, not for her own health, but that she cannot work for the greater good any longer. All the strands revolve around people desperate to work exceptionally hard for the Japanese war effort, the be all and end all of their lives. There is nothing about the film indicative of Kurosawa's work. Any visual tropes he had developed in Sanshiro Sugata, characteristic of his future work, are gone. There is no moving camera. There is no sense of thrill. The 'drama' is utterly bland and forgettable. It is the least beautiful Kurosawa I have seen. The only entertainment comes from seeing the utterly hollow propaganda – one year from Japan's defeat in the war – that is professed throughout the film. Before the film begins, a pre-title invites us to "Attack And Destroy The Enemy". Which is nice of them. And later, when a group of women are singing uplifting songs to raise morale, the subtitles helpfully explain that they are vowing to "do our best to help to destroy America and Britain" and hoping that the enemy "disappear to the bottom of the sea". How charming. Whilst this is amusing, it is laughing at the film rather than with it. So the film cannot be credited. But even through the propaganda, it might have been possible to have an interesting study of female volunteer factory workers in Japan. But even then, nothing can be learned (other than that they existed) as the film feels so false. Frankly, the only reason to watch The Most Beautiful is if you are a Kurosawa completist. And even then it should probably be the last one you watch.

Hoagy27 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.

xerses13 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.