Kattiera Nana I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

KnotMissPriceless Why so much hype?

Calum Hutton It's a good bad... and worth a popcorn matinée. While it's easy to lament what could have been...

Erica Derrick By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

TheLittleSongbird 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

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.

Michael_Elliott Most Beautiful, The (1944) ** (out of 4)Interesting WW2 era film about a factory in Japan who asks their men to raise production by 100% and then ask the women to do 50%. At first the women are insulted by not being asked to do as much as the men but they soon find out that this raise in production is going to test every bit of their soul both physically and mentally. This early Kurosawa film isn't a good one but it is interesting and does have a few moments where the director does something great. What I found most interesting about the film is how different it is from the WW2 films that were being produced in Hollywood at the time. There's no question that this is a propaganda piece for the Japanese people but it's interesting to see how their moral was attempted at being raised. Most of the American WW2 pictures were "fight, fight, fight" and you can say that about this film but the difference is that the fight is mostly a personal drama with each of the women. Then being ashamed that they can't produce more for their country. Being ashamed that they are sick and can't do their part for a day. Ashamed that their parents might learn they were sick and couldn't do the job. The film does a pretty good job at building up these dramas but sadly none of their stories are strong enough to make the film be a total success. I think most of the blame has to go towards the screenplay that is a bit too over dramatic during certain scenes and there are some major issues with some of the performances. It's obvious Toho didn't give Kurosawa much of a budget but the director shows that he can handle the personal drama quite nicely. The most impressive sequence in the film happens early on when the women are told that production is going to be raised. This somewhat long sequence shows us many of the women talking amongst each other and Kurosawa builds up us thinking they're unhappy about the raise but the way he explains what they're really upset about was quite powerful. The film runs 85-minutes and even at this short pace the film begins to run out of gas and really drag along towards the end. Fans of Kurosawa will probably want to check this out but others will probably hit the stop button early on.

MartinHafer 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.