This man directed a film more than 5 hours long which explores the relationships between four 37-year-old female friends. For 10 points each:
[10h] Name this director of Happy Hour. He remarked that ‘it becomes easier to focus and react’ in multilingual stagings, referring to a theatrical production in a 2021 film he directed.
ANSWER: Ryūsuke Hamaguchi [or Hamaguchi Ryūsuke]
[10m] A multilingual staging of Uncle Vanya appears in this Hamaguchi film, which in 2021 became the first Japanese film nominated for the Best Picture Oscar. It is named after a short story by Haruki Murakami, which itself was named after a Beatles song.
ANSWER: Drive My Car [or Doraibu Mai Kā]
[10e] This earlier Japanese director included a character called Murakami in his crime drama Stray Dog. His later films include Rashōmon and Seven Samurai.
ANSWER: Akira Kurosawa [or Kurosawa Akira]