TOO TIRED TO DIE
Reviewed by Harvey Karten, Ph.D. Dream Search Entertainment Director: Wonsuk Chin Writer: Wonsuk Chin Cast:Takeshi Kaneshiro, Mira Sorvino, Jeffrey Wright, Michael Imperioli, Geno Lechner, Ben Gazzara, Sandra Prosper, David Thornton, Aida Turturro, Hye Soo Kim, Drena De Niro
You know those college applications that ask you to write an essay about yourself? What they ought to ask, specifically, is "What would you do if you found out you had just one year to live?" Liberate the candidates' imaginations and see who can come up with something more original than "See the world" or "Donate all my money to your college." In "Too Tired To Die," Korean-born Wonsuk Chin's first production and one which took eight years to get released, the writer-director poses a question even more focused and immediate: "What would you do if you found out you had just twelve hours to live?" Hug a stranger, as one character in the film advises? Have a quick bedroom fling? Take the Concorde to Paris? "Too Tired To Die" deals with one person's choices, not the kind that you or I would probably make, but nonetheless options which should have provided for an engaging set of adventures. Unfortunately, though its script strives for originality above all, it is merely a pastiche of vistas culled from some of the noted directors like Ingmar Bergman, Woody Allen, and John Woo thrown together without cohesiveness, making for a phlegmatic, talky movie with neither humor nor philosophic depth. At best, movie buffs will find satisfaction in identifying the styles of the masters which are duplicated here. About the only real existential gem that emerges from all the banter is that "life is short: seize the day," and one assumes that somehow many of us had heard that before.
"Too Tired to Die" starts off in an absolutely promising way, a homage to the era of silent films as Death, in the form of the glamorous Mira Sorvino (who is appears time and again in an array of Melissa Toth's smashing outfits), approaches an Arab in Old Baghdad, who temporarily escapes her embrace by running for his life. Cut to contemporary Manhattan, to the hip SoHo artists' neighborhood, where a collection of oddballs sit at a cafe pretending to be other than what they are. As a man who allegedly reads Balzac, Jeffrey Wright expresses himself, mostly about the charms of the opposite sex, while feigning the air of a world-weary intellectual. In truth he has not even read page one. Fabrizio (Michael Imperioli) turns up as a aesthetic film-maker, perhaps the raissoneur for the regisseur himself. The reality is that he is merely a ticket- seller at a theater box office. When Kenji (Takeshi Kaneshiro), a rootless, unemployed Japanese sponging off his Tokyo-residing mother, meets Pola (Geno Lechner), an exotic German woman about to travel to Paris, he is entranced, makes a date with her for that very evening. One day after a disappointing post-prandial visit to her apartment he is told by Death that he has just twelve hours to live.
The movie gives Mira Sorvino the opportunity to appear in several guises, in one case picking up some gangsters who oblige her by falling prey to a John-Woo style gunman ("I'll meet you soon, considering your profession," she advises the killer), in another situation as a Japanese geisha, and in yet a different scene as a Yentl-style figure in a man's outfit. As Kenji remains at a loss for what to do with the remaining hours of his life, he winds up at a dinner party through the invitation of a famous artist (Ben Gazzara) whom he criticizes for hanging out with a woman much younger than he (Hye Soo Kim).
The only real insight we get from the time spent with this oddball cast of characters is the Death is not an automaton, despite her need simply to follow orders. She has feelings, particularly regarding the taking of people who are young and, in fact, can resort to tears in the execution of her gig. You've got to wonder what was in Wonsuk Chin's mind when his payoff is so out of tune with the rest of his story. "Too Tired To Die" feels like a talky French film--the Eric Rohmer variety- -itself a tired effort that departs from the screen an unsatisfying death. it succeeds only too well in pointing out the deadly dull flavor of some European arthouse fare and the exhausted flavor of pseudo-hip victuals.
Not Rated. Running time: 97 minutes. (C) Harvey Karten 1998
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