Quentin Tarantino is an admirer of the film saying "for the last time as a lead, Mitchum was vibrantly alive... Takakura Ken’s powerhouse performance, at the height of his fame, in this Hollywood Yakuza flick, seems even more of a triumph... the film’s final coda, “The Finger cutting scene,” is, for me, one of the great endings of any movie of its era. And arguably Mitchum’s single greatest acting moment on film (as long as some fuckwad in the cinema doesn’t laugh during it)."