Details

Release year: 1953

Storyline

A tale of ambition, family, love, and war set in the midst of the Japanese Civil Wars of the sixteenth century.

Top credits

Directors

Kenji Mizoguchi

Writers

Cast

Masayuki Mori — Genjûrô
Machiko Kyô — Wakasa
Kinuyo Tanaka — Miyagi
Mitsuko Mito — Ohama

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Awards

0 wins & 1 nomination

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Did you know

• The conclusion of the Tôbee-Ohama subplot was quite different in the original script from its resolution in the finished film. In that original draft, after meeting his wife Ohama by chance in the brothel, Tôbee does not renounce his ambition and continues his military career, leaving Ohama behind. Although the studio, Daiei, had given the director, Kenji Mizoguchi, full artistic freedom for this production, the pessimistic nature of this ending was too much for studio executives, who pressured him heavily to change the script to include a more upbeat ending, and he complied.

• The plot is a combination of two tales from the work of Ueda Akinari called "Tales of moon and rain".

• The stories of Akinari Ueda were not the only literary sources that the movie's scriptwriters drew upon. They also were inspired by the comic story "How He Got the Legion of Honor" by Guy de Maupassant for the subplot involving Tôbee's fanatical desire to become a samurai.