John Gillett of the British Film Institute has written of Kinoshita's "instinctive feeling for the CinemaScope format, balancing and forming beautiful visual patterns with the skill of a master juggler. This essentially 'modernist' approach applies both to the stylized studio productions and those films shot on luscious locations, with the sea never far away." Kinoshita, who invariably experiments with a new form in each film, based The River Fuefuki on the Japanese picture scroll: its visual motifs dominate many of the compositions, and a ballad-like narrative truly seems to unfold on the screen. The story, set in the war-torn 16th century, tells of three generations of a farming family whose sufferings are exacerbated by the young people's desire to become warriors. Once again Kinoshita undercuts sentiment with harsh realism, and cinematic excitement with bitter truth by employing stop-motion and still photography in the midst of exquisitely filmed battle panoramas. The effect is devastating, literally capturing the violence and agony of war.