This epic period film was based ultimately on Schiller’s play The Robbers, which formed the inspiration for playwright Juro Miyoshi’s stage work, Yoshino no tozoku, performed by the Zenshin-za. Miyoshi’s story was redrafted by Sadao Yamanaka, and Takizawa, filming on location in a wintry Hakone, realised this film version about a warrior seeking revenge on the lord who accused him of treachery.
The “Kinema Junpo” reviewer praised the performances of the Zenshin-za, noting that, even though they had previously performed the material on stage, they were able to adapt their acting style, shedding its theatricality for the film version. He also praised the direction, commenting that “the true discovery of this film lies in the revelation of Eisuke Takizawa’s talent and sensibility”.
Akira Kurosawa served as assistant director and commented, somewhat disparagingly, that “the landscape impressed me far more deeply than what we were filming”. Yet he ended up feeling an affinity with the film’s location in and around Gotemba at the base of Mount Fuji, where he was eventually to shoot several of his own period films; and he would recapitulate its set piece of charging horses in Seven Samurai, Throne of Blood and Kagemusha.
Director Eisuke Takizawa (1902-1965) was the younger brother of Buntaro Futagawa, also a director, who had made the famous silent period film Orochi (Serpent, 1925). Takizawa too specialised primarily in period films and had a prolific career which lasted from the late 1920s until his death. Takizawa left Nikkatsu for P.C.L. just before Yamanaka did, and while working at the latter studio the two men ended up sharing a home in Tokyo until Yamanaka, on being drafted, left for Manchuria.

Alexander Jacoby e Johan Nordström