Demasiado cansado para morir

i just finished watching "too tired to die" on cinemax. i had seen the commercial for it earlier today, and it looked like it was a good watch. basically, a japanese slacker, played by takeshi kenshiro (from 'chungking express' - another excellent movie), is approached by death, played by mira sorvino, and told that he has 12 hours to live. from that premise, i figured it would be your basic lark of a movie, seeing how a slacker deals with the fact that he has half a day left to live.

it wasn't quite the hour and a half of hijinx and hilarity that i'd expected.

not to say that it wasn't good. it was. i just --- it was one of those movies that ends and i'm not quite sure just what i'm feeling. one of those movies without an actual crescendo or climax or resolution, or anything. not your typical movie vehicle. and so, now that it's over, i have no idea what to feel. i mean, it basically followed his 12 hours, and the surreal, bizarre events that take place. i can't even discuss it or how i feel about it or talk about what happened, because i don't want to spoil it for whomever might be reading this. it was just one of those movies that leaves you hanging and yet, at the same time, doesn't. it was a little confusing, and a little ... i don't even know.

i can't help but feel that i missed out on something in the movie. like it was some art piece that somehow escapes me. that i can't quite understand. which is funny, because that exact premise came up in the movie, where kenji (the main character) is looking at a piece of abstract art and asks the artist if it's possible to like something without understanding it. i guess that's how i feel about the movie. i liked it, and i know it was a good movie, but i can't understand it. and i can't help but wonder if i'm missing out on something bigger because i can't understand it. for maybe it wasn't even meant to be understood. after all, isn't the purpose of art to create different meanings in different people? each person who views it, who experiences it, creates their own interpretation of it. maybe it wasn't intended to be understood. just watched, enjoyed (and i don't even know if i enjoyed it. if that makes any sense. i know i liked it, but did i enjoy it?), and appreciated.

maybe this is what the director had in mind. maybe this is what he wanted? for the audience, after watching it, to just sit and not know what they feel. whether or not they enjoyed it, or understood it, or even knew what the hell just happened.

i know i want a copy of it, though. i know that i want to be able to share it with people, and --

i just called a friend on his cell phone. told him to remember the name of the movie, and try to catch it on cinemax, or watch it. i need someone to share it with. discuss it with. someone to help me understand it, maybe, i don't even know. it's just too --- god. it's a mind f*ck, and emotion f*ck, a head f*ck. i couldn't even form coherent sentences on the phone, while trying to explain the movie to phil. i feel like i'm some sort of messed up, bizarre drug, that's how messed this movie has me. i don't get it. it was such a ... non-movie movie ... and yet it's got me so affected. it just WHAM hit me. maybe it's just me. just some weird emotional state i'm in that was triggered or enhanced by the movie, but i can't remember being this -- shaken, moved, affected, bewildered -- by a movie. i keep rambling on, spewing words onto the computer, hoping one of them will help describe what i feel, but so far none of them are even close to it.

The aimless protagonist is an all too believable character, and therefore there is considerable empathy for him, even when his behavior is not justifiable. This film really gave me something to think about; how many people would do better than Kenji if given 24 hours to put their life in order? In traditional Hollywood, everything would miraculously work out fine, but of course Wonsuk Chin knows better than that. This is a case where I think a bitter flavor is better than sweetness. Not all of the loosely-linked scenes work, and Sorvino can grate at times, but on the whole the movie is very much worth seeing. The opening is wonderful.

This movie is like a moving dartboard. details flash before you and as you aim your attention on a particular target, it quickly goes out of reach.

I just rented this flick among 6 others (saw Wall Street before this one, really good movie) simply because Mira Sorvino is a hottie and the premise of the film (guy gets 12 hours to do whatever he wants) sounded intriguing.

It turned out to be something a hell of a lot different.

From the opening credits I was impressed with the set-design, the actor and the way it was being filmed. Fantastic opening scene gave me the feeling I was going to watch something really unique. And I did.

Unfortunately, I cant quite find the words to describe what I saw. It seemed almost like an improvisation. Characters that didnt quite seem to fit in the story, conversations that didnt seem to hold any relevance, plot-twists that were inconceivable. This isnt your typical hollywood film.

Again, I was taken aback by the style of the movie, and I recommend this for those seeking something "different" to comment on along with their friends. Just like "Lost Highway" had an important message locked somewhere in it's tangled skein.

Oh well. That pretty much sums up my opinion of the movie, sorry I couldn't have done a better job. peace out.

It's about death, this movie, and the struggle to find meaning to one's life, when having only a few hours to do it. Big subjects, indeed, worthy of a great artist - needing one, really. Writer/director Chin doesn't suffice.

The film plays with classic themes, related to this topic - such as the chess game with the reaper in Bergman's 'Seventh Seal'. Bergman's knight loses the game, but wins the lives of those he has learned to hold dear. In this movie, nothing is gained, and so one wonders: is anything at all lost?

There's an interesting atmosphere in the film, sort of an arty New York setting through an immigrant's eyes, but neither that nor anything else is really followed through. What must be meant to have some profound undercurrent, remains just surface - and a quickly sketched surface, at that. It would have been better to make this film a pure comedy.

The premise for the movie has been done, or at least has been "heard" to have been done in films like "Life or Something Like it. The difference here is what happens, or more specifically what doesn't happen, and in my opinion, this film is far more superior.

Kaneshiro plays Kenji - the tragic hero of the movie, who is informed by Death that he has less than 24 hours to live. I forget the exact number. The subsequent actions follow him around for the next day, and allows the audience to see what he would do with that knowledge.

People may find this movie pretentious or more precisely that "nothing happens." And they're all right. However, if one were to take the time to digest the film after watching it, you will realize the deeper truths that it reveals. Please excuse me if this sounds artsy-fartsy.

If you were told that you had one day to live by Death, I think many of us would react very much like the main character: be consumed by disbelief and inertia and "waste" time by doing nothing. I think it's more hits closer to home than we would like to admit.

Unfortunately, life isn't just filled with earth-shattering revelations and exciting flashy monologues, unlike Scrooge in a Christmas Carol. It's mainly us - filled with our thoughts. We are not the consummate Shakespearian tragic hero with one huge flaw. People have many little ones. And the meaning of life and all our problems can't be solved in one night, no matter how romantic that ideal might be.

Oddly enough, I find this film to be a slice-of-life and quite realistic, despite the premise. Kenji goes into a coffee shop regularly to find a man sitting there alway reading a novel by some great author. Kenji often watches him but is afraid to approach him, to ask him what novel he is always reading. With his newfound knowledge of his impending death, Kenji does things he wouldn't normally do, which is obligatory in such films. However, the revelations that are "revealed" for a lack of a better word, are not big deals, but are instead, little insights to what makes us truly human - pretension, postering, lies and how we pretend to be more than we truly are.

I really liked the casting of Kaneshiro. He has that listless artist look to him, that fits the character very well. However, I really disliked Sorvino, as I thought her whole motive for taking the role was to showcase her knowledge of the Mandarin language.

So ultimately, this is a hard film to review and even describe. It is slow. It can leave viewers with a sad emptiness. For some reason, it reminds of the novel, "Flesh and Blood" by Michael Cunningham and maybe even "The Rules of Attraction" by Bret Easton Ellis. You see the flaws of characters very clearly. You feel as if you hadn't learn anything about them except that they are unmotivated and vain creatures - things which you already are informed in the opening sequence. Therefore, it came as a complete surprise at the end of the movie, the amount of emotion I felt. So I think the film succeeded in drawing emotions that I wasn't even sure were there, perhaps it is the empathy we feel for ourselves and each other.