Anecdotes

The White-Hair group decapitated 3 people, one of whom was Sagara Sozo.The scene with three heads can be seen towards the end. He was a real person who led the Sekihotai. He was executed on March 26 1868 in Nagano Prefecture.

The townspeople often sing "Ei ja nai ka" which was actually the refrain for a kind of festival/mass movement that happened at the end of the shogun era in 1867/1868 in Japan. They sang it as a way of protest masked in a festival style. There was a movie made with this phrase as title, Eijanaika (1981).

Sekihotai, of which Mifune's character is a member, means something like the "Red Vanguard" in Japanese. It was set up by the anti-shogun forces to go through areas and announce that rents were to be halved. The plan was to get civilian support for the new regime. There were 3 units that traveled ahead of the real anti-shogun army. They were then denounced by the anti-shogun forces.

The Japanese title for this film is Akage which means "Red Hair".

Tosando is the name of the road system that lead from the Kyoto area up to the north of Honshu in Japan. It was quite old. It is often mentioned in the film.