When asked about his experience filming his debut movie, Akira Kurosawa said "I simply enjoyed it. I went to sleep each night looking forward eagerly to the next day's shooting, and there was absolutely nothing painful in the experience... the whole task was carried out with a feeling of ease."
Cinematographer Akira Mimura recollected in his diary the outdoor scene of Yano fighting the jujitsu men by the riverside, claiming near zero temperatures forced the men thrown into the river to one by one be immediately pulled out of the water and driven to the hotel to warm up.
Though the film passed the military censors, Akira Kurosawa described the evaluation process similar to "being on trial".
Roughly 17 minutes of the original film vanished after the war and remains lost to this day.
Akira Kurosawa begged Toho to buy the rights for him to make this movie before the book was even released. Producer Nobuyoshi Morita told him they could not buy the rights until the book was officially published. By his own admission, Kurosawa stalked book stores until he finally found a copy, which he bought and read immediately.