A young couple meet to spend their Sunday together, as they do every Sunday. They have 35 yen to spend - a paltry amount. Off they go, but at the back of their minds, nagging them, threatening to ruin their date, is their impoverished circumstances. The man takes this to heart. The woman, whose shoes are falling apart, is blessed with optimism.<br /><br />Don't be fooled by the simplicity of the storyline. This film engaged me on several levels. It's the story of their date which keeps threatening to turn sour, and often does, but which is finally rescued by one unalterable fact: their love for each other. Not some dreamy-eyed American mass-culture Silhouette-novel type of love, but real, practical love that demands rigorous action when the stakes are down. If anything, this film presents a blueprint of how this couple will spend the rest of their lives together. It's heartwarming in a really special way.<br /><br />Through the eyes of this couple, as the day's events unfold, we see a panorama of post-war Japan, and it isn't a pretty sight. There is corruption on every scale imaginable. Desperate circumstances force people to compromise their pride and integrity, even in minuscule ways. The man is tempted on all sides to compromise his, so this film becomes the story of his struggle not to (in one scene he becomes enraged when scalpers buy up the remaining 10 yen concert tickets that he and his date wanted and start re-selling them for 15 yen). Money is the pervasive leitmotif of this film. Money and the not having it, the wanting it, the scrounging for it, the giving it, the soul-tainting influence of it, and yes, the necessity of it.<br /><br />That's not to say that there isn't grace and beauty here. And magic. There's plenty, amid the heartache and despair. "One Wonderful Sunday" reminded me of "The Bicycle Thief", De Sica's powerful portrait of post-war Rome, also mounted on a deceptively simple vehicle - a man's desperate search for his stolen bicycle.<br /><br />And finally, the whole thing is tied together by a most inspired and dramatic metaphor. At the start of the film the man spies a half-smoked cigarette on the busy sidewalk. He focuses all his attention on it. Looking around, embarrassed, he quickly reaches for it, but his girlfriend suddenly appears. He explains, sheepishly, that he hasn't had a smoke in three days. At the end of the film he comes across a half-smoked cigarette on the train platform. He hesitates, then crushes it with his shoe, his pride intact.<br /><br />I've been watching some Kurosawa films recently, and I had almost forgotten that there could be such beauty and intelligence in cinema.