The Most Beautiful

The Most Beautiful
Directed by	Akira Kurosawa
Written by	Akira Kurosawa
Produced by
Starring	Yōko Yaguchi Ichiro Sugai Takashi Shimura Takako Irie
Cinematography	Jōji Ohara
Music by
Production company	Toho Studios
Distributed by	Toho Company
Release date	April 13, 1944 (1944-04-13)
Running time	85 minutes
Country	Japan
Language	Japanese

The Most Beautiful (一番美しく, Ichiban utsukushiku) is a 1944 Japanese drama and propaganda film written and directed by Akira Kurosawa. The film is set in an optics factory during the Second World War when the film was produced.

Plot[]

The film depicts the struggle for the workers at a lens factory to meet production targets during World War II. They continually drive themselves, both singly and as a group, to exceed the targets set for them by the factory directors.

Critical reception[]

Paul Anderer of Columbia University has commented on the subtext of the film having been released during the war years for Japan. Anderer offers the opinion that; "It is as if Kurosawa himself were in this lineup (of directors under state scrutiny), frozen inside wartime, when any significant movement or resistance to the authority would be stillborn. Surrounded by a censorship apparatus far more resourceful and intimidating, he would later claim, than anything the American Occupation threw his way, he had few thematic or tonal options: historical tributes to Japanese spiritual and martial values (like Sanshiro Sugata and its weaker sequel), or patriotic odes to factory production and sacrificial domesticity (e.g., The Most Beautiful, 1944)".^[1]

External links[]

• The Most Beautiful at IMDb
• The Most Beautiful at AllMovie
• The Most Beautiful (in Japanese) at the Japanese Movie Database

References[]

This article related to a Japanese film of the 1940s is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by .

• v
• t