"late spring" belongs to the type of japanese film known as "shomingeki", a genre that deals with the ordinary daily lives of working class and middle class people of modern times. the film is frequently regarded as the first in the director’s final creative period, "the major prototype of the [director's] 1950s and 1960s work." these films are characterized by, among other traits, an exclusive focus on stories about families during japan's immediate postwar era, a tendency towards very simple plots and the use of a generally static camera.