Name: Retro Film Review: Too Tired to Die (1998)
Item: Too Tired to Die
Rating: 30
Author: @drax

(source:tmdb.org)

It is heartbreaking to find out that someone can spend years trying to make a film only to receive poor reviews for all his troubles. Something like this happened to South Korean film-maker Wongsuk Chin with his 1998 drama Too Tired to Die.

The plot begins in medieval Baghdad where young Arab (played by Rizwan Manji) begins his centuries-old flight from Death (played by Mira Sorvino). In modern-day New York Death catches him thanks to Kenji (played by Takeshi Kaneshiro), young unemployed Japanese expatriate who spent years milking his parents and exchanging in pseudo-intellectual discussion with his snobbish friends – Italian expatriate Fabrizio (played by Michael Imperioli) and Balzac Man (played by Jeffrey Wright). As an expression of gratitude, Death informs Kenji that he is about to die in 12 hours and advises him to spend this limited time most wisely.

Too Tired to Die uses some interesting concepts - man forced to live a life in twelve hours and Death in the form of beautiful and melancholic woman - but Wongsuk Chin apparently didn't know how to build on them. There is some black humour in the film, but Chin gradually begins to view his film as an opportunity to pay homage to Bergman, John Woo and existentialist philosophy. The viewers begin to notice film's derivative nature as well as the lack of proper drama. The protagonist, although well-played by Takeshi Kaneshiro, is simply too boring and too ordinary to be interesting to audience, even when put in such extreme situation. Mira Sorvino fares much better in a role that allows her to display fluency in Oriental languages. Some of her scenes only make film longer, though. After violent and un-cathartic ending most of the audience would agree that the poor reviews for this film were richly deserved.

RATING: 3/10 (+)

(Note: The text in its original form was posted in Usenet newsgroup rec.arts.films.reviews on October 11th 2004)