Critics hold that Red Sorghum, which carries the mysterious colors of silence on the vast northern plain on which it is set and describes a strong northern man taking a wife, and Judou, which describes the melancholy of a beautiful women suppressing her sexuality, are both "packaged in exoticness."
有評論者認為，《紅高粱》開場一望無際的荒原，除了畫面「帶有神秘色彩的沉默」，這個描述北方大漢娶親的故事，和《菊豆》裡刻畫哀怨美麗少婦性壓抑的情節，都是一種「異國情調式包裝」。