"Released just as Japan's "bubble economy" period of the late 1980s - in which the country sailed to the forefront of world economic powers - was ebbing, the film is bogged down by crass moralizations about Japan's role in the world community and its tenuous relations with other nations. The implication seems to be that Japan is smarter and richer than everybody else, and political tensions over trade issues are borne out of being left behind the coming century."