What a waste of my time!!!

an ambitious but ultimately ineffective debut endeavor.

The plot isn't so bad, but the pace of storytelling is too slow which makes people bored. Certain moments are so obvious and unnecessary for the main plot. I would've fast-forwarded those moments if it was an online streaming. The ending looks like implying a sequel, not sure if this movie will get one

This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

Yuzo (Isao Numasaki) and his fiancée Masako (Chieko Nakakita) spend their Sunday afternoon together, trying to have a good time on just thirty-five yen. They manage to have many small adventures, especially because Masako's optimism and belief in dreams is able to lift Yuzo from his realistic despair.Kurosawa really did a fine job working in post-war Japan, capturing the stress and occasional optimism. Some have compared this film to the works of Frank Capra because of its sentimental overtures. That is interesting and quite possibly a valid connection. It certainly stands out as a different sort of Kurosawa.I do love that he cast no known actors, with the exception of Ichiro Sugai, who would go on to appear in 140 pictures, including Kurosawa's "Stray Dog" (1949) and Ozu's "Early Summer" (1951). Whether this was intentional or just a reflection of the film industry of the time, I do not know.

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.

This simple movie of a young, poor couple trying to enjoy their day off with little money is the best non-Italian neorealist film I've come across. True to the neorealist spirit, not a lot goes on; a gloomy Gus and his girlfriend wander the city, she trying to bring him out of his depression while it seems all of life is determined to keep him in it. The movie does a good job of painting a picture of Japanese post-war poverty. Chieko Nakakita gives a wonderful, charming performance as she tries to cheer her beau and to fight against her own distress at their plight. Some scenes are truly striking, notably a trip through an uptown club and a tense, almost wordless scene between the two lovers.The final big scene in the film drifts away from neorealism. It's an odd scene, and from a critical point of view I'm not sure what to make of it, but viscerally I found it rather affecting. I would love to know how audiences responded in Japan at the time. There are a few issues in the movie. Some scenes go on too long (like the aforementioned "final big scene." And the guy's sudden emotional upswings often seemed to come out of nowhere, unlike his depressions, whose genesis was always clear. But overall it's a very human, simple movie with moments of joy and moments of pain, and I highly recommend it.

A very untypical Kurosawa film (at least seen from a future perspective), but very typical of the period - almost all the great Japanese directors tried to make movies immediately after the war which explicitly tried to address the poverty and hopelessness of the time, but to look forward with something like optimism - Ozu's Record of a Tenement Gentleman and Mizoguchi's Lady of Musashino come to mind.The film takes place on a typical Sunday in the life of a young couple, who work such long hours they can only spend one day a week together. They are poverty stricken, with little hope for the future. Both are upbeat characters, but the man is slowly succumbing to depression and despair despite the frantic efforts of his girlfriend to help him. The film gloriously follows them through the ups and downs of their days, as they survive increasing humiliations at the hands of the rich and the corrupt. All they have is their love and their dignity. It is all shot with Kurosawa's familiar genius for camera-work and editing, and complemented by great performances.The ending - where famously the actress begs the audience to clap in support - divides everyone. Many find it manipulative and sentimental. Personally, I cried my eyes out. Just go see it and make your own mind up.