Most of the movie takes place in Kita-Kamakura, about 30 miles from downtown Tokyo. Several years after the release of the film, the director, Yasujirô Ozu, moved with his mother to the area and spent the rest of his life there. (His tomb is also located there.) Furthermore, the film's star, Setsuko Hara, also eventually moved to the area and, as of May 2013, reportedly still lived there under her birth name, Masae Aida.
It is the first installment of Yasujirô Ozu's so-called "Noriko trilogy." The others are Early Summer (Early Summer (1951)) and Tokyo Story (Tokyo Story (1953)).
Banshun (Late Spring (1949)) is a Japanese drama film directed by Yasujirô Ozu and written by Ozu and Kôgo Noda, based on the short novel "Father and Daughter" (Chichi to musume) 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 Chishû Ryû, 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 Bakushu (Early Summer (1951)) and Tokyo Monogatari (Tokyo Story (1953)); 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.
The occupying American forces in Japan following World War II censored two specific lines in the script regarding the main character's health and the state of Tokyo. Director Yasujirô Ozu was forced to change these lines in the film.
At about 45:24 Noriko's aunt mentions a baseball movie starring Gary Cooper. The movie she's referencing is The Pride of the Yankees (1942).