Between October 11 and November 5, 1968, 19-year old Norio Nagayama killed four people with a handgun. He was arrested on April 7, 1969. The Tokyo District Court sentenced him to death in 1979, though this was overturned by the Tokyo High Court, which imposed a sentence of life imprisonment in 1981. The Supreme Court of Japan reversed the high court's decision in 1983 and subsequently sentenced him to death in 1987. In prison, Nagayama wrote many novels and became a public figure. He was executed by hanging on August 1, 1997. He made no final statement.
Although it was completed in 1969, this movie was first shown in public in 1975.