This work was originally based on the screenplay for "Hibi Heian," written by Shugoro Yamamoto, and directed by Hiromichi Horikawa, who was once Kurosawa's chief assistant director. "Hibi Heian" was written relatively faithfully to the original, as a period drama with a timid and unskilled protagonist and no sword fights, but Toho expressed their reluctance, so the project was not realized. After that, due to the box office success of "Yojimbo," Toho asked Kurosawa to "make a sequel to 'Yojimbo,'" so he made major changes to the script of "Hibi Heian," which had been lying dormant without seeing the light of day, and replaced the main character with a skilled Sanjuro, turning it into "Tsubaki Sanjuro" (co-written by Hideo Oguni and Ryuzo Kikushima). Kurosawa had envisioned Keiju Kobayashi or Frankie Sakai for the lead role in "Hibi Heian," and the image of the samurai played by Kobayashi in "Tsubaki Sanjuro" still retains the image of the main character of "Hibi Heian." In the final duel scene between Mifune and Nakadai, a special effect was used in which blood spurts from Nakadai's body after he is cut with a pump. This technique itself had already been used in "Yojimbo", but it was not noticeable in "Yojimbo" because the screen was dark at night and the amount of blood was small. The impression of "Tsubaki Sanjuro", which was filmed on a clear day this time, was so strong that it led to the general public misunderstanding that "Tsubaki Sanjuro" was the first film to use this technique in a fight scene. However, it is true that the expression of blood spurting has been widely imitated in fight scenes and action scenes since this film. There are many other highlights in the fight scenes, such as the scene where Sanjuro cuts down 30 people in just 40 seconds. This film was ranked 5th in the Kinema Junpo Best Ten. It was also ranked 82nd in the "All-Time Best 100 Japanese Films Selected by Filmmakers" published by Kinema Junpo in 1999.[Note 1] In 1995, the film was selected by the British BBC as one of the "100 films to be preserved in the 21st century," along with "Saikaku Ichidai Onna" (directed by Kenji Mizoguchi, 1952), "Tokyo Story" (directed by Yasujiro Ozu, 1953), "Ran" (directed by Kurosawa, 1985), and "Sonatine" (directed by Takeshi Kitano, 1993). Director Akira Kurosawa wanted the nine young samurai in this film to be played by young people of today, not as period dramas, and even at the reading stage, he had them wear wigs, makeup, and costumes just like in the real thing. During filming, they were made to carry real swords even though there were almost no scenes in which they were drawn, and some of them cut their hands with the swords during filming. After the reading, they were made to jog around the studio in their original clothes, and at the end, they were made to draw their swords and run towards a straw doll made by the props manager, slashing it down, and this was repeated every day. The other troupes who saw this scene mocked them, calling them the "Nine Stupid Samurai." In a scene where the four young samurai were captured by the enemy on the open set, they were left with their hands tied behind their backs and forgotten for a long time, and it took a lot of fuss for them to finally be untied. When Tsuchiya Yoshio muttered, "I'm going to have to get a bowl of char siu ramen, on behalf of the director," a delivery of char siu ramen really did arrive a short time later. While the other hungry actors, especially Mifune Toshiro, who said, "I love char siu ramen and have it for lunch all year round," stared at them, the four of them bravely devoured it.