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 Battle of the Japan Sea (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 The Men Who Tread on the Tiger's Tail (1945), with Akira Kurosawa. Production had to be halted for Emperor Hirohito's address to the nation.