Late Spring

Late Spring is a 1949 Japanese drama film directed by Yasujirō Ozu and written by Ozu and Kogo Noda, based on the short novel Father and Daughter by the 20th-century novelist and critic Kazuo Hirotsu. The film was written and shot during the Allied Powers' Occupation of Japan and was subject to the Occupation's official censorship requirements. Starring Chishū Ryū, who was featured in almost all of the director's films, and Setsuko Hara, marking her first of six appearances in Ozu's work, it is the first installment of Ozu's so-called "Noriko trilogy", succeeded by Early Summer and Tokyo Story ; in each of which Hara portrays a young woman named Noriko, though the three Norikos are distinct, unrelated characters, linked primarily by their status as single women in postwar Japan.