Director: Mikio Naruse

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Birthday: 1905-08-20
Born in: Tokyo, Japan
Biography: Mikio Naruse (August 20, 1905 – July 2, 1969) was a Japanese filmmaker, screenwriter, and producer who directed some 89 films spanning the period 1930 (towards the end of the silent period in Japan) to 1967. Naruse is known for imbuing his films with a bleak and pessimistic outlook. He made primarily shomin-geki (working-class drama) films with female protagonists, portrayed by actresses such as Hideko Takamine, Kinuyo Tanaka, and Setsuko Hara. Because of his focus on family drama and the intersection of traditional and modern Japanese culture, his films are frequently compared with the works of Yasujirō Ozu. His reputation is just behind Akira Kurosawa, Kenji Mizoguchi, and Ozu in Japan and internationally; his work remains less well known outside Japan than theirs. Akira Kurosawa called Naruse's style of melodrama, "like a great river with a calm surface and a raging current in its depths". Description above from the Wikipedia article Mikio Naruse, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.

Known for

When a Woman Ascends the Stairs

Keiko, whom everyone calls Mama, narrates her story: she's a hostess on the Ginza, 30, a widow. She describes life's vicious cycle: acting cheerful around drunks, dressing and living well to convey confidence, needing money for these expenses and for her demanding mother and brother, and knowing she's growing older.
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8.0
When+a+Woman+Ascends+the+Stairs
When a Woman Ascends the Stairs

1960

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Yearning

War widow Reiko rebuilds and runs the grocery shop in the house of her husband's family. Many years later, their business is threatened by a newly built supermarket and Reiko's in-laws plan to convert their small shop into a supermarket, to her detriment.
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8.1
Yearning
Floating Clouds

A married Japanese forester during WWII is sent to Indochina to manage forests. He meets a young Japanese typist and promises to leave his wife. He doesn't and after the war, she turns up and the affair resumes.
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7.7
Floating+Clouds
Floating Clouds

1955

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Sound of the Mountain

An ingratiating bride develops warm ties to her father-in-law while her cold husband blithely slights her for another woman.
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7.4
Sound+of+the+Mountain
Sound of the Mountain

1954

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Two in the Shadow

A man is involved in a fatal car accident, and though he is blameless, his company transfers him to a remote branch in a small town. Before he leaves, he gives the man's widow a large sum of money that she uses to move back to her hometown.
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7.8
Two+in+the+Shadow
Two in the Shadow

1967

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Late Chrysanthemums

With delicate, unobtrusive strokes, Naruse evokes both the humor and bitterness of his characters’ dilemmas, in this bleak, compelling poignant portrait of a quartet of aging geishas contemplating their troubles with men and money.
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7.3
Late+Chrysanthemums
Late Chrysanthemums

1954

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Repast

Michiyo lives in the small place Osaka and is not happy with her marriage, all she does is cook and clean for her husband.
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7.4
Repast
Mother

A teenaged girl witnesses her widowed mother's attempt to sustain her family.
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6.8
Mother
Ginza Cosmetics

A luckless geisha struggles to make a living for herself and her young son.
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5.8
Ginza+Cosmetics
Ginza Cosmetics

1951

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Lightning

The story of Kiyoko, a young woman who has successfully managed to make a break with her dysfunctional family who have been trying to arrange a marriage for her with a disagreeable man whom she has rejected.
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7.1
Lightning