Film debut of Anna Nakagawa.
From the late 1950s onward, bringing to the screen the popular novel about China, "Tonkô," by writer Yasushi Inoue had been a dream project of celebrated director Masaki Kobayashi, who made such famous films as Harakiri (1962) and Kwaidan (1964). Kobayashi not only obtained the rights to Inoue's book, but had adapted another novel by the author to the screen as the 1974 film, The Fossil (1974). Eventually, the major studio Daiei became interested in the "Tonkô" project. But Daiei's and Kobayashi's visions of the film clashed, partly because Kobayashi insisted upon historical authenticity, which would have made the film much more expensive. In the end, Daiei indicated that it no longer wanted to work with Kobayashi. Since the latter owned the novel's rights, he could have shopped the project around to other studios. However, he had bonded with novelist Inoue, and was concerned that the latter would become ill or die before a movie version of the book appeared. Reluctantly, Kobayashi ceded his rights to the novel to Daiei, and the studio completed the film with another director. It was perhaps the greatest professional disappointment of Kobayashi's career.