Anecdotes

Hakuô Matsumoto plays the Emperor Hirohito in this film, the first time Hirohito (or any living Japanese emperor) was played by a Japanese actor in a Japanese film. Matsumoto subsequently portrayed Hirohito's grandfather, the Meiji Emperor, in Nihonkai daikaisen (1969).

This film was produced to commemorate the 35th anniversary of Toho Studios.

Takashi Shimura who who plays Information Bureau Director Hiroshi Shimomura, and Susumu Fujita who plays Colonel Toyojiro Haga, were both actually on August 15th, 1945, shooting Les hommes qui marchèrent sur la queue du tigre (1945), with Akira Kurosawa. Production had to be halted for Emperor Hirohito's address to the nation.