By Player

By Player , Sanmon Yakusha? is a 2000 Japanese biographical film directed by Kaneto Shindo based on the life of actor Taiji Tonoyama.

The first part of the film shows Tonoyama talking to a waitress, Kimie Keiko Oginome, in a coffee shop. He then meets her father and asks him for permission to marry Kimie. The father asks him to first divorce his existing wife, Asako Hideko Yoshida. In fact he is not married to Asako. To prevent him marrying Kimie, Asako then registers them as married.The film moves through various episodes of Tonoyama making films with director Kaneto Shindo. At the time of The Naked Island, Tonoyama is close to death from alcohol poisoning, and is saved only by there not being anywhere to buy drinks. During the filming of Ningen and Onibaba, he repeatedly sneaks off to get drunk with actors Kei Sato and Kei Yamamoto. Director Shindo played by himself is seen as a distant, lonely figure, doing odd things such as burning driftwood in the rain or trying to catch fish in a pond where no fish are present. ........

Source: Wikipedia