| Released in Japan a week before the attack on Pearl Harbor, the film was a qualified critical success but a box-office failure, sending the director into an 18-month depression.
During shooting, director Kenji Mizoguchi's wife went mad, but the director was forced, by government edict, to continue working.
This epic was the most expensive film produced in Japan during the war years.
The executives in charge of the exorbitant production were forced to resign after its box-office failure.
Director Akira Kurosawa stated that Mizoguchi was "no good at samurai." |
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