Sorry, this movie sucks

Absolutely the worst movie.

Worth seeing just to witness how winsome it is.

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

Based on the cover you'd think that One Wonderful Sunday was a heartwarming piece of Japanese cinema, let me assure you that it is not.Toho's early films are bleak, dark and depressing and this is no exception. It tells the story of a couple out together in a war ravaged Tokyo. With minimal money they set about making the most of their time together.She is optimistic and a happy girl while he is negative and truly miserable. It could be argued that the core theme behind the movie is depression, if it's not it perhaps should have been.Though it has some sweet moments and some of the content you'd have expected based on the cover the majority is harrowing.The film despite being by Kurosawa was poorly recieved almost globally as folks seemingly didn't like the finale. I don't personally think it was terrible but it certainly should have been better. Since this is a Toho film ultimately it could have been a lot worse for our characters as others have ended in murder and double suicides.One Wonderful Sunday is sugar and salt shaken together, it will lift your spirits before kicking you into a bout of depression.The Good:Some sweet momentsVery well madeThe Bad:Very depressing in placesInconsistent tonesThings I Learnt From This Movie:Stupidly wealthy people still look at grotty dirty rooms to rent because.....reasonsI'm not sure I'd want to live in a world where a single rice ball costs ten times as much as a ticket to the zooThat girl has a loud clap!!!

There is a Frank Caapra populism about One Wonderful Sunday's occasional moments of corny sentimental hopefulness. But above all this is Japan just after the war, shabby, despairing, scrambling to get back on its feet. This couple is bipolar: the girl is cheery -- but she also has a long crying jag. The guy is angry and humiliated at he loss of manhood in his not being able to afford minimal entertainments on the couple's one day off together out of the week; but he also has his energetic surges of courage and hope. One doesn't quite believe in it. But it holds us prisoner for the run of the film. He's already that good, even despite the wrong notes and the corniness. This is such a deeply sad, depressing film: I immediately thought of Dodes'ka-den , the powerful multi-thread tale about depression and poverty Kurosawa made in the early Seventies, when he was himself going through a period of despair. And of course there is the premature reference to a masterpiece to come, Ikiru, in the swing-in-the- park scene. The style is strange, sometimes compelling, sometimes agonizing. We're dragged along helplessly on a sine curve of momentary happiness and longer periods of gloom. What makes it almost unbearable to watch is the way each shot or scene is held too long, none more than the final one where Yuzo (Isao Numasaki) goes up on the stage of the empty ampitheatre and mock-conducts almost a whole movement of Schubert's Unfinished Symphony. It's agonizing. It's terrible. But there's something also so humanistic (to an absurd extreme, as in Italian neorealism, which may have been an influence, as well as silent film, Chaplin) that you balk at it and at the same time can't resist it. The appeal of the girl, Masako (Chieko Nakakita) to the audience, said to have fallen on deaf ears in Japan but been loudly responded to in France, to us now just seems anachronism, a violation of the illusion. I am personally disturbed by the casting, because Masako looks a little homely, her face slightly bloated (was that considered pretty in 1947 Japan?) while Yuzo, with his handsome head of hair, is more presentable. At the same time this makes it easy to see them as married, twenty years or more later on, and what is so touching is the faith that in fact they will somehow stay together, and will somehow make a family, and survive, thrive even. But the whole thing shows us how Kurosawa's belief in the human spirit was very close to pessimism and despair. Mr. Watanabe in Ikiru almost gives up, and in Dodes-ka-den the little boy and his father die. There's a moment when it looks like Yuzo may slit his writs. Does playing orchestra conductor really mean he's going to make it? There's a convention here that's too antiquated to buy into. It makes them seem simply deranged -- or more desperate than we'll ever know. Ticket scalpers are evil! Dante must have a bolgia in Hell for them.

Set in post-war Tokyo, One Wonderful Sunday is a sentimental recounting of a day in the lives of a poor young couple who spend an eventful Sunday together wondering how they will ever be as happy as they once dreamt they would be before the war ruined their country. Throughout the day, the camera follows their mundane but increasingly desperate attempts to find an affordable apartment, to cheaply amuse themselves and to remain optimistic through it all. Despite the bleak reality of their situation, and the fact that all they have is each other, this seems enough to sustain them, and ultimately it is their heartfelt hopefulness which provides a glimmer of hope for their future together. As a reflection of post-war Japan, One Wonderful Sunday demonstrates of the power and importance of optimism in the country's eventual renewal and prosperity (Klaus Ming January 2011).

With this warm and uplifting film, the effect Kurosawa achieves is in the simplicity. The story is threadbare. Two lovebirds try to spend a Sunday together in post-war Tokyo and enjoy themselves with only 35 yen in their pockets. Kurosawa never ceases to amaze me because of his incredibly acute comprehension of the visual effects of a story. The simpler the story is, the more it becomes simply a day in their lives. The more it becomes a day in the life, the more upsetting we find the challenges facing them because of the Occupation and the crumbling economy at the time.It's almost like a lightweight version of The Lost Weekend. There are no debilitating problems like alcoholism or writer's block. There are just obstructions and inconveniences with which the characters can either roll or stew around.One Wonderful Sunday is a beautiful slice of life from a time that could be many different times in many different places. It's a peaceful movie about the peace that is always there for a given person, their journey being to find it. I have rarely seen a sequence so beautifully crafted on film as the two lovers in the empty, decaying concrete exterior auditorium, where one resolves to create the music they have been struggling to hear. There is hardly a handful of filmmakers living today that would think of such a thing. Kurosawa may have had the clearest, purest understanding of cinema out of any filmmaker.