Mikio Naruse (Japan, 1905) was famous for working-class melodramas with female protagonists, mostly adaptations of female writer Fumiko Hayashi's stories.
Tsuma yo Bara no Yo ni/ Wife Be Like a Rose (1935)
Hideko no Shasho-san/ The Bus Conductress (1941)
Meshi/ Repast (1951) was the first of his six Fumiko Hayashi adaptations,
followed by Inazuma/ Lightning (1952),
Tsuma/ Wife (1953), based on the novel "Chairo no me" (1950),
Bangiku/ Late Chrysanthemums (1954), based on three Hayashi short stories of 1948, and
Ukigumo/ Floating Clouds (1955), perhaps the most famous of Hayashi's novels.
Another woman, Yoko Mizuki, scripted Okasan/ Mother (1952), Husband and Wife (1953), Older Brother Younger Sister (1953) and Sound of the Mountain (1954).
Onna ga kaidan o agaru toki/ When a Woman Ascends the Stairs (1960), perhaps his best,
Midaregumo/ Scattered Clouds/ Two in the Shadow (1967)
