Kinoshita examines the disintegration of values amid the cultural confusion of postwar Japan-revealing the supposed "beautiful solidarity" of the war years to be a sham as well-in this, one of his most acclaimed films. Set in Atami (the Japanese Miami Beach), A Japanese Tragedy tells of a widow who sacrifices everything, falling into disrepute as a bar hostess, for the sake of her ungrateful children, who care only for material comforts and who as adults will have nothing to do with her. The form is that of the haha-mono or "mother drama," paying tribute to the long-suffering mother; but Kinoshita subverts sentiment with harsh realism. He utilizes newsreel footage and newspaper headlines in dynamic montage to integrate the tragedy of this mother-who is totally ignorant of politics or history-into a larger historical perspective. (In this way, A Japanese Tragedy becomes an early forerunner to Shohei Imamura's Insect Woman and History of Japan As Told By a Bar Hostess.) Formally, the film makes innovative use of flashbacks, giving its tragic climax extraordinary force.