[3][4] During Woman on the Night Train's Japanese critics noted the influence of European filmmakers on Tanaka's style.

Luis Buñuel's Diary of a Chambermaid (1964), and Octave Mirbeau's original novel were said to be particular influences on Woman on the Night Train.

[4] In their Japanese Cinema Encyclopedia: The Sex Films, Thomas and Yuko Mihara Weisser give Woman on the Night Train a rating of three out of four stars.

Rather than staging the scene in a mundane bedroom setting, Tanaka makes the seduction more shocking by filming it among the stuffy, professorial father's books and papers in his study.

[4] Allmovie judges Woman on the Night Train "memorable", "[s]tylish and absorbing", and one of Nikkatsu's best entries in the softcore genre of this period.