 The Japanese Ministry of Information, under the militarist  government, commissioned director Kenji Mizoguchi to make this film  as a morale booster for the WWII war effort. But it was a commercial  failure, being released in Japan one week before the attack on Pearl  Harbor. The military and most audiences found the first part of the  film to be too slow and serious. However, the studio and Mizoguchi  both regarded it as so important that Part 2 was put into  production, though Mizoguchi was forced to insert some close