 Tojo's granddaughter, Yuko Iwanami, stated that the film "challenged the image of her grandfather as a villain" by presenting a truth which had been "erased" after the war.Itō, meanwhile, stated that he "wanted to show how Tojo fought with pride", standing and facing the tribunal on his own.Itō would not direct another feature-length film until "Lost Crime – Flash" in 2010, a crime film which Mark Schilling of "The Japan Times" considered enough to release him from "director's jail" – "the limbo in which film directors find themselves after a flop or two."