Two years previously, when the Studio Park had been opened to great fanfare, Toei had sent sixteen truckloads of cinema-grade scenery, costumes and armour off to the trash heap, convinced that it would be a waste of money to keep storing samurai sets and material in an era of thrillers and detective dramas.

Red-faced producers were obliged to rebuild many interiors from scratch, leading to complaints from the studio head, Shigeru Okada. Despite his earlier enthusiasm, he now remembered somewhat tardily that he had been the bean-counter who had shut down period dramas at Toei in the first place. It was all very well making samurai films, he fumed, but horses now cost ten times what they used to.

From my booklet article in the new Eureka Blu-ray release of Shogun’s Samurai, a.k.a. The Yagyu Conspiracy.