Akiria Kurosawa’s The Most Beautiful opens not with an image of beauty, but with a brutal command: “Attack and Destroy the Enemy!” This command is followed by the totalitarian declaration that this is “An Information Bureau Movie for the People,” before the familiar Toho Studios logo even appears on screen. This is the disorienting introduction to Kurosawa’s 1944 wartime docudrama.
While nominally a Toho project, The Most Beautiful was created under the unyielding grip of Japan’s militarist government. By 1944, as resources dwindled and creative control tightened, it was one of only 46 films released in the country. Kurosawa had initially planned an action film centered on Zero fighter pilots, but with no military aircraft available for filming, he was compelled to pivot. His new subject: a “patriotic morale booster” about young women working in the home front.
Kurosawa ingeniously blurs the line between documentary and fiction. In what one might described as startlingly early anticipation of method acting, the actresses lived in the factory where they filmed, ate in its mess hall, and referred to each by their character names, immersing themselves entirely in their roles.
The story centers on a group of women at an optics plant, producing lenses for weapons of war. When the government mandates a production increase—a staggering 100% for male workers, but only 50% for their female counterparts—the women, driven by a fervent sense of duty, passionately petition to have their own quota raised. The film chronicles their subsequent struggle, a grueling battle against exhaustion, illness, and personal sacrifice to meet these self-imposed targets.
As a historical document, The Most Beautiful offers a window into Japanese wartime society. It captures the realities of industrial mobilization: factory floor dynamics, dormitory life, management techniques, company calisthenics. showing us the lives of Japan’s equivalent of Rosie the Riveter.
Thematically, the film offers a distillation of a core Japanese cultural value: dedication, often referred to as “doing one’s best.” This cultural touchstone, likely familiar to anyone acquainted with Japanese media, finds an extreme and unsettling expression here. For 85 minutes, we watch these women do their best, pushing past physical limits, ignoring illness and family duties, all in the service of building weapons.
Here the virtues Kurosawa would later champion for humanistic ends—dedication, community, and self-sacrifice—serve imperial militarism. These women work to “destroy Britain and America” and to ensure that the Yamato race would not have to live under the same sky as Chinese people.
Kurosawa himself would later grapple with his role in creating such propaganda, stating with stark honesty: “I offered no resistance to Japan’s militarism… I did not have the courage to resist in any positive way… I am ashamed of this, but I must be honest about it.”
And yet, for the cinephile, there is undeniable value in The Most Beautiful beyond its function as a historical artifact. You can witness the nascent signatures that would define Kurosawa’s later work. The director demonstrates his growing mastery of rapid-fire editing to convey urgency, intimate close-ups to reveal inner turmoil, and meticulously crafted compositions that transform a factory floor into a battleground of the will.
Furthermore, in a filmography often dominated by male bonding and power struggles, it is compelling to see Kurosawa, forced by circumstance, center an ensemble of women.
The Most Beautiful is not an easy film, but for those willing to engage with its complicated legacy, it is an intriguing if challenging piece of cinematic history.Thank you for joining me for the third installment in my series on World War II propaganda films. Next time, we’ll journey from the Pacific to the Atlantic to examine another narrative feature: the immortal classic, Casablanca.
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