I've only known some of the most popular films by Kurosawa, and never heard of this one.
According to the Japanese Wikipedia, the plot of the movie is something like this:
The Toa Kogaku (the fictitious name in the film. "Toa" means "Eastern Asia") decided to increase the quantity of production twice for the male workers and 1.5 times more for the female workers, which meant that the female workers now had to produce half as much products as the male workers do. But Tsuru Watanabe, the leader of the female team, insisted that the female workers should produce 2/3 as much. That goal to strive for turned out to be very hard to achieve, and caused various conflicts among the female workers, which resulted in the decrease of their production rate that had increased initially. The arduousness was finally conquered by the hard efforts to solve various problems on their own and with the help of their dorm mother and their bosses.
Obviously this is one of many propaganda films made during the war time, but Kurosawa allegedly admitted in an interview long after the war that there had been an implied antiwar message in the film. The title would be translated "Most Beautifully".
Most of the lines heard in this excerpts are usual words of encouragements towards the struggling workers. Mrs. Watanabe was crying during the work because she had learned the passing of one of her parents, which apparently symbolized the dedications of them for the nation. The workers came from various parts of Japan and lived together in an dormitory near the factory.
Trivia: in 1945, Kurosawa married with the actress Yoko Yaguchi who had starred the film by playing the role of Tsuru Watanabe.
Thanks, Ron, for your effort and info!
