 Jonathan Crow of AllMovie stated that "the perpetual struggle for power that precludes any unity among the wives provides a depressingly apt metaphor for the fragmented civil society of post-Cultural Revolution China".James Berardinelli made a similar analogy in his review where he stated that "Songlian is the individual, the master is the government, and the customs of the house are the laws of the country.It's an archaic system that rewards those who play within the rules and destroys those who violate them.