Customer Reviews

One Wonderful Sunday [VHS]

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

After reading several reviews of this film I was expecting it to be terrible. All of the reviews I have read made this movie seem like it belongs with Ed Wood's collection of terrible films. Therefore I was skeptical before viewing this film, but as I watched the skeptisism waned, and later entirely dissappeared. This film tells the story of a struggling young couple in post WWII Japan. The only time that they get to see one and other is once a week, every Sunday. The part of the film that critics condemn the most is during the films last moments when the female lead turns to the camera and addresses the audience, thus breaking the hallowed convention that critics have only let Mel Brokes break without slaughter. The scene in One Wonderful Sunday, is by no means as bad as some critics state that it is. And after viewing the film in its entirety one is left with a warm feeling of hope, akin to The Shawshank Redemption.

This video has to have the worst subtitles -- in format and translation -- that I have ever seen. But please don't let that stop you from seeing One Wonderful Sunday. This is a poignant story about a young couple struggling for normalcy in the aftermath of war. He's a recently returned vet with little left but his pride. She's an eternal optimist who believes in making lemonade, as the saying goes. The twists and turns that this young couple encounter as they try to make the most of the Y35 at their disposal (as near as I can tell, it's the equivalent to a modern date on $5) are fascinating. Watch for the stickball game -- it's classic! But just when you have this pegged as a romantic comedy, Kurosawa hits the heartstrings. Who'd'ha thunk it? A Kurosawa romantic movie!

1947: the world was just recovering from the horrors and the ashes of the bloody WW2. In Italy, De Sica won the Cannes festival with Shoeshine, Marcel Carne (The children of paradise) and Jean Cocteau (Orpheus) found through the myth and the poetry, solid answers to a deep end question, and at the same time Frank Capra filmed his masterpiece: "It's a wonderful life". In this sense, I want to catch your attention in which concerns the world was hovered by a very thick cloud of hopeless and pain.

In Japan after the devastation and the painful wounds, Akira Kurosawa, a very young director by then, was filming that admirable fable, around two outlaw people, an impoverished couple who simply is unable to make their dreams come true on a Sunday. She dreams with a new home and a renovated life although the odds, and then the magic will arouse among them when the illusion be so strong that be able to materialize a live concert playing the "Unfinished Symphony."

One might say - without hesitation - this was the first Japanese film inscribed into the mainstream best knwon as Neo Realism.

One of these forgotten little gems of this kaleidoscopic filmmaker.

I loved this film. It is sometimes painful to watch, and its uneveness shows that Kurasawa was not yet the master he ultimately became. Still, his talent for providing windows into the human soul is still awesomely displayed, and gives us the chance to experience the reality of the protagonists' lives to an extent that is almost scary.

The film's title is ironic. It is set in the ruins of Tokyo a year after World War II ended. A young engaged couple is trying to build a new life among the burned out remnants of buildings and rampant corruption. Their struggle is not only against the external damage of the war but also its moral and spiritual effects on society and ultimately themselves.

The main characters are two impoverished office workers attempting to find a little joy on the only day they can spend together each week. They have only 35 yen between them to escape their daily grind, just a few dollars in today's money.

Yuzo is a soldier returned from the war going through an emotional roller coaster ride as he tries to rise above his ghastly experiences overseas and his struggle to make a living in the present. Masako, his fiancee, tries to keep him from losing hope altogether by being relentlessly cheerful. But the cheerfulness barely conceals her efforts to find her own sense of hope as she deals with the dark experiences of living through firebombings, poverty, and corruption in Japanese society during the war and immediately after. Their effort to find a happy conclusion to their day together mirrors their struggle to somehow acheive their dream of a happy family life without sacrificing their essential moral goodness to the corrupt efforts to survive to which others around them have succumbed.

The scene near the end, where Masako breaks the fourth wall and asks the audience for encouragement as Yuzo attempts to conduct an imaginary orchestra, does mar the movie somewhat. It seems that Kurasawa is still experimenting with the appropriate level of involving the audience emotionally, and he has overstepped considerably here. But even as we wince at Masako's pleas to applaud, we are reminded that the audience she was addressing when the movie was first presented in Japan probably including many couples on a cheap date, who were trying to rebuild their lives just as she and Yuzo were.

These days we remember Japan's postwar rebuilding mainly through its incredibly successful outcome. But this movie and the couple's efforts to rebuild their lives without succumbing to the corruption around them, gives a rare window into the devastation experienced by a modern society that was defeated in a pointless war, and the spiritual wreckage it left behind.

Kurosawa has taken a simple, common event that many have done and turns it into a physical and emotional adventure. A simple date between a man and a woman set in very early post war Japan and what it means to be building a life together at that time.

He is a returned soldier trying to deal with a new Japan. He has lost the dream of serving his emperor and is now living the nightmare of a defeated and destroyed Japan. It seems like he is a man with little hope of any sort of a future. Yet he is engaged.

His fiancee however is trying to build a life togeher for them. Not only does she have to care for herself but she is also trying to get her fiance to look ahead to a getter life together.

The detail that Kurosawa shows is sobering. He is wearing a threadbare suit. She is wearing shoes that are falling apart. There are ruins all around them - evidence of a destroyed Japan. But there are bright spots too. They meet some children and for a few minutes he is playing baseball with them and she is cheering them on. For a moment he is happy until a broken window ends the game. How many Americans can relate to this scene? I can - up to and including the broken window. The kids scatter and he pays for the window and the adventure continues.

They come across a model home. She wants to see it and he is not interested. Again, she gets him interested in what life can be like. The cost of the house is beyond them but it gives them a few moments to dream of a better future.

This movie has more events. They go to his miserable little apartment and have a fight. They look for another apartment to live together in without succcess. His meeting a friend in what is probably a black market club. The hurry through the rain to a concert to hear Schubert's Unfinished Symphony only to see the last few cheap seats bought up by a scalper. He tries to get tickets and in the ensuing fight with the scalper, looses. They end up in a small clearing where this time, he comes to life. He talks of his dreams, he gives an imaginary performance of Schubert's work. They are both laughting and having fun. The movie ends with them planning the next date.

This is a sobering movie. It is about a Japan that existed 58 years ago. It is a Japan those of us born after 1945 know nothing about. Kurosawa's charecters probably typify the young men and women of that time. He is trying to rebuild a life for himself and she is trying to build a future that is for both of them.

Given the post war time frame and it being the height of the US occupation of Japan, there are no Americans in the film - not even the jeeps of the occupation forces are seen. This is a film about Japanese lives only.

The movie is not a happy ending. They make palns for their date the following sunday but you come away wondering if they will be able to make it. Thre are many obstacles ahead of them - does he have the will to live to get over them? You don't really know.

This is an impressive film. It is a sobering film. It is a film worth watching. I recommend it to everyone with an interest in Japan and the occupation period of Japanese
history. I think it is one of Kurosawa's best films. It is unfortunate that it is not more widely known.

Akira Kurosawa seems to be able to excel at whatever genre he chooses. In "One WOnderful Sunday" we are presented with a love story of a young Japanese couple in Post-WWII Japan. The challenges that they face as a couple are many; under-employment, no money, high prices, black market economy, virtual homelessness, low self-esteem, etc. etc. etc.. However, they do have each other and they have their Sundays together. This particular Sunday, with only the equivalent of a couple of bucks between them, they try and figure what options they have for entertainment.

We soon get to know their personalities. The young man is a principled war veteran who is ashamed that he can't offer his fiance more than just his companionship. The young lady is a postive individual who sees the brighter side of every issue. It is she who seems to be able to keep the relationship upbeat. Their day has its' ups and downs; at times they find enjoyment in simple pleasures and at other times they find themselves shut out from things they felt they should have been able to afford. Their day reaches a crisis point that made me wonder where the film's title came from. When all seems lost, they seem to rediscover that their relationship (like all relationships) depends on their love and respect for each other rather than their focus on their individual needs.

The movie lives up to its' title (as I was certain it would). As the movie unfolds, we are drawn to this couple. In that process, we get a real sense of the joys and sorrows that come their way. At times we may feel that someone should do something to help. Eventually, we realize that the only ones that CAN help are the young couple themselves. In watching their discovery of this fact, we are uplifted.

This is a good film. There are some scenes where the film drags; but in general it is a good film. The film starts with a young, poor couple who have only 35 yen to spend on a Sunday. We follow them through the ups and downs of their day. This film is a lot like an Italian Neorealist film. It's very poignant and you can truly feel the character's pain when they cry for their situation. Another good movie by my guru Kuro-san.

We have heard the stories what it was like here after the war against the Japanese but seldom, if ever, do we get to have a peek into the society and the day to day life of the defeated Japanese, the average person as they try to continue with their lives interrupted by the war and the destruction of both their social and physical strutures. This movie was made at the time depicted and within the structure of the Allied censorship so there is no anti-Americanism but the anger for the defeated Japanese military imperalism is clearly just below the surface. This film was intended to rally the people to keep moving forward towards a better day. I rated this 4/5 stars only because it was made during a period of censorship and "stuff" had to be left out. It would otherwise rate a easy "5" stars.

After reading the customer reviews for this film, I thought it would be a poignant visit to the past for my mother since she had lived through World War II as a child in Yokohama. The premise was simple enough -- a young couple tries to make the most of the little money & time that they have during one Sunday. However, Kurosawa's painstaking attention to detail and thoroughness insures that each scene drags on much longer than it should. The same can be said of the entire film -- it felt as if 2 and a half hours had past when it finally, mercifully ended. While viewing One Wonderful Sunday with my family, I (with great determination) was the only one who sat through the entire film. Both of my parents fell fast asleep in the first 30 minutes.

One last note. I didn't mind when the lead actress spoke to the camera, but that should have been the end of the film. Instead Kurosawa included a few more lethargic, drawn-out scenes.

One Wonderful Sunday would make a good subject for an essay in a film class at a university, but not as a night of family entertainment. Buyer beware.