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.
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.