The director Ozu Yasujirō wrote Banshun (Late Spring), Bakushū (Early Summer) and Tōkyō monogatari (Tokyo Story) with the screenwriter Noda Kōgo at the Chigasakikan, the inn in Chigasaki where Ozu regularly stayed.
The two also worked at a mountain lodge in Tateshina. In the three or four months they spent developing the idea, writing the script and planning the shoot, one hundred large bottles of sake piled up at the lodge’s entrance.