"Akira Kurosawa made films covered in rich tapestries of Japanese history and charged with terrible violence and drama. Yet here, the contemporary and confined world of a rich industrialist (Toshiro Mifune) who is faced with an overwhelming decision is spare, cold, and objective in the extreme. Hideo Oguni, who worked on seven Kurosawa films, including Seven Samurai, wrote the screenplay based on an Ed McBain novel. Mifune, once again, shows why he is the Japanese Marlon Brando, Edward G. Robinson, and Gregory Peck rolled into one."

"I saw this movie in Cincinnati right before I began shooting a new film, which was a terrible thing – because I couldn't get it out of my head and found myself spending too much time thinking about it and not on the work I had at hand. It's a real mystery of a movie, and I don't think I'll ever quite figure it out. Nor would I want to. If my new movie suffers, I'll hold Olivier Assayas partially accountable for making something so wonderful."