Kinugasa presented this old engraving to Eisenstein in 1928 in Moscow. Prior to working in cinema, Kinugasa was himself a Kabuki actor (onnagata, that is, a performer of female roles). Later, in 1973, he recalled that it had been Eisenstein, passionately fond of Japanese art, who at a meeting in 1928 had been able to explain to him the origin and specificity of some creative techniques that Kabuki actors memorized as a tradition. One of these techniques is depicted in this engraving: the wrath of a samurai is transmitted through slanted eyes.

The inscription was made post-factum, at the Japanese exhibition devoted to Eisenstein in 1973. It is known that Kinugasa was in Moscow in April 1928. Perhaps the date (August 15, 1928) is not an error of memory, but evidence of Kinugasa’s return from a trip to Western Europe to Moscow in the summer of 1928, just in time for the Soviet tour of the Kabukiza theater.