Late Spring

Late Spring , Banshun? is a 1949 Japanese drama film, directed by Yasujir Ozu and produced by the Shochiku studio. It is based on the short novel Father and Daughter Chichi to musume by the 20th century novelist and critic Kazuo Hirotsu, and was adapted for the screen by Ozu and his frequent collaborator, screenwriter Kogo Noda. The film was written and shot during the Allied Powers Occupation of Japan and was subject to the Occupations official censorship requirements. It stars Chish Ry, who was featured in almost all of the directors films, and Setsuko Hara, making her first of six appearances in Ozus work. It is the first installment of Ozus socalled Noriko trilogythe others are Early Summer Bakushu, 1951 and Tokyo Story Tokyo Monogatari, 1953in 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. note

Professor Shukichi Somiya Chishu Ryu, a widower, has only one child, a twentysevenyearold unmarried daughter, Noriko Setsuko Hara, who takes care of the household and the everyday needscooking, cleaning, mending, etc.of her father. On a shopping trip to Tokyo, Noriko encounters one of her fathers friends, Professor Jo Onodera Masao Mishima, who lives in Kyoto. Noriko knows that Onodera, who had been a widower like her father, has recently remarried, and she tells him that she finds the very idea of his remarriage distasteful, even filthy. Onodera, and later her father, tease her for having such thoughts.Shukichis sister, Aunt Masa Haruko Sugimura, convinces him that it is high time his daughter got married. Noriko is friendly with her fathers assistant, Hattori Jun Usami, and Aunt Masa suggests that her brother ask Noriko if she might be interested in Hattori. When he does bring up the subject, however, Noriko laughs Hattori has been engaged to another young woman for quite some time. ........

Source: Wikipedia