Muito Cansado Para Morrer

Kenji (Takeshi Kaneshiro) is a Japanese guy living in New York. He spends his days at a local coffee shop. He encounters his mysterious dream girl (Mira Sorvino). She is death and she reveals that he has twelve hours to live.

This is an experimental indie. There is some surrealism but it struck me as fake unreality. One thing that doesn't help is the guy's heavy accent. It actually grew to annoy me. The acting ranges from amateurish to some recognizable veterans like Jeffrey Wright, Michael Imperioli, and Ben Gazzara. This is strictly indie time. It would help to have some better cinematic style. Newbie director Wonsuk Chin tries a few moves but they come off looking amateurish.

A film with a really interesting premise and obviously some provocative ideas behind it. Unfortunately it goes nowhere from there and particularly towards the end becomes tiresome and violent.

The best part of the film is by far the character of Death played by Mira Sorvino.

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.

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.

Interesting film and perspective. Humor is off beat, more subtle innuendo than in your face but works. Knowing that it came out in 1998 far earlier than other now classic Korean films, TIRED probably has influenced Korean cinema in one way or another by paving the way in a rather great cast way and delivery. The quirky story which is far more typical of Korean cinema was probably not appreciated at the time but I think resonates much more clearly today due to greater exposure to Asian cinema and Korean cinema specifically. I liked the film especially seeing actors such as Jeffrey Wright and Takeshi Kaneshiro who have developed quite the career. It's always nice to chance upon films in Netflix archives that delight!