Mikio Naruse
Mikio Naruse (1905–1969) was a Japanese director regarded as one of the four great masters of classical Japanese cinema alongside Ozu, Mizoguchi, and Kurosawa. He began as an assistant at Shochiku in the late 1920s before moving to PCL (later Toho), where he settled into the patient, unsentimental shōshimin-eiga ('common people') genre that defined his mature work. His films, frequently centred on working women trapped between economic necessity and emotional disappointment, are widely admired for their restraint and emotional precision. His acclaimed films include Wife! Be Like a Rose!, Repast, Late Chrysanthemums, Floating Clouds, When a Woman Ascends the Stairs, and Yearning.