Too Tired To Die (98 Film)

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Too Tired To Die

This small independent film has so many stars and familiar faces, that the artwork varries from country to country.

Oscar Winner Mira Sorvino
Korean Movie Star Hye-su Kim
Ben Gazzara from Dogville
Aida Turturro from The Sopranos
Michael Imperioli from The Sopranos
German Actress Geno Lechner
Gretchen Mol from The Thirteenth Floor

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Synopsis:

A potent mixture of American indie savvy, European weltschmerz, and Asian high style permeates first-time director Wonsuk Chin's tragicomedy Too Tired to Die. The charismatic Kenji (Takeshi Kaneshiro from Chungking Express) is a young Japanese man measuring out his life in coffee cups in downtown New York when he receives an unwanted visit from a fetching and decidedly ungrim reaper (Mira Sorvino in numerous guises) who gives him the news that he has twelve hours to live. That sets Kenji on a quest to do all the things he should have done...if only he had had the energy.

Heir apparent to Hal Hartley, Chin, who also wrote the screenplay, sthingys delectable smatterings of Hong Kong gangster films and Bergman melancholia in with exotic monochrome dream sequences to create a thoroughly satisfying query about life and how to live it. He elicits spirited performances from an all- star cast that includes Jeffrey Wright (Basquiat), Michael Imperioli (Goodfellas), Bill Sage (Simple Men), Geno Lechner (Schindler's List), and Ben Gazzara (Husbands). And throughout the film, we can't take our eyes off Kaneshiro, dazzling in his first American film, with his stilted English and endearing eagerness, his hip suit and hair falling over his eyes...and his life ebbing away.

Taken from filmscouts.com

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Korean poster:

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[entropic_soul]

I like this movie, but it just seemed like it was going to be better than it actually was. TK's lack of good english language skills bring down his acting. I imagine it's hard to act when you don't know what syllables to put certain inflections, but still - he does alright.

And what about that girl TK hooks up with near the beginning. Supposedly, this girl is supposed to be really hot. That's what they say. I don't see it. Moderately attractive, sure, but definitely not beautiful. That's a pretty hard thing to pull off, especially when scenes are hopping back and forth between her and Mira Sorvino, who actually is beautiful.

The plot was ok. From this kind of movie, I would have prefered either a little more to think about or a little more to laugh at. It's like the movie wants to do these things, but never really goes at it prefering to just poke at an issue without really exploring it at any length. Shouldn't Kenji analyze his life a bit more? There are many things that could be done with this set-up, but the writer never really does anything at all. In that way it's disappointing.

It's still a movie worth watching (heh, all TK films are.) I have to say, of course, TK is in it and that's cool. Plus a few plot points are pretty good, but I won't spoil. There are several scenes that I thought didn't really need to be in the movie, but they were a nice touch, nonetheless (such as the scene with Kenji's mother.) And Mira Sorvino always lifts up every scene she's in, which is a plus - unless you don't like Mira Sorvino, then I guess it's not a plus.

[princesse mononoke]

Sorry for my English I'm french!

About too tired too die: " Yesterday I decided to watch it (I had never seen it before)... During the first minutes I thought : "Strange movie ! The kind I like to watch !" It was a little bit like "Brooklin boogie" or "Smoke" you known, these kind of New-York independant movies. The first apparition of Takeshi, in black and white was promising. Takeshi's acting is good, the images are beautiful but... as soon as Takeshi dressed up ... and gets out of his apartment it is "the beginning of the end ". First of all : What are these awful clothes Takeshi is wearing ? God these are grand pa's jeans both too short and coming up to his armpit... In France we would call them "feu de plancher"= floor fire (you know when trousers are too short like if the floor was on fire and had burned them) and these huge turn-up(s)!!!!!!! Fortunately Takeshi is handsome so he could wear anything !

After this disappointing scene there is the problem of acting (all actors play false, even Takeshi who seems to be influenced by his partners) maybe it's because of the difficulty to act in English with poor dialogues. Too bad, because there are plenty of good ideas in this movie but the script is kind of inept. And the kisses ! Let's talk about the kisses ! I had read somewhere that Takeshi was the best screen kisser ever (I had found this funny at the time). Well, sorry to bring contradiction but to me, there was not a hint of sensuality in Takeshi's kisses and you'd better believe me (I'm French hihihi ... you know our reputation ? ).

Mmmm I'm afraid I'm making enemies especially among girls, but be assured that I really love Takeshi, it's just that when you really do love someone, you should be true to him... So sorry for his unconditional fans but in this movie Takeshi lacks virility... except in the scenes with Mira Sorvino and especially the one when she is visiting him in his apartment and tells him that he will die: then his acting is both true and subtile. ...At last the Takeshi I love, the one who impressed me so much in Fallen Angels, WAS BACK!
But please Takeshi promise me not to wear these awful jeans anymore !!!!?
"
From my blog: blondie2takeshi.blogspot.com/

[MissCarlos]

Bonjour, Princesse!! Je suis francaise aussi mais je suis canadienne.

I saw the trailer on this site but it's buggy so I can't view the whole thing but it looks adorable!!

[princesse mononoke]

Hi misscarlos

Takeshi est toujours beau!!! mais là ses vetements non c'est pas possible!!! on se croirais dans les années 80
En bref ne regarde pas celui là en priorité! rien à voir avec "Fallen Angels". Takeshi + Wong Kar Wai= chef d'oeuvre

[temptingheart]

This movie is like a very mild version of 'Meet Joe Black' starring Brad Pitt. Of cos MJB is much more interesting cos Brad Pitt as Death is far more beautiful than Mira as sort of Fairy Godmother.

I definitely would not watch this movie if not for TK. The beginning was a bit silly and I was like, what's this? Then TK appeared and I held my breath. First time I heard him speaking Japanese. I love it. Though I always knew with his deep voice, it would definitely sound at home. He looked cute in the morning too.

Guest-princesse said:

First of all : What are these awful clothes Takeshi is wearing ? God these are grand pa's jeans both too short and coming up to his armpit...

Yeah, you're right. I was thinking the same thing. But TK's fresh face made you forgot all that. And his first English words, 'it's decaff' put a smile to my face. I love the way he spoke. A bit slow but clear and rather cute. Actually I love to hear other nation speak English, like how Olivier Martinez in 'Unfaithful' sound so sexy.

Guest-princesse also commented, 'I had read somewhere that Takeshi was the best screen kisser ever (I had found this funny at the time). Well, sorry to bring contradiction but to me, there was not a hint of sensuality in Takeshi's kisses...'

Maybe he's a bit uneasy about kissing in western movie for the first time. I guess kissing scenes are still a bit of taboo in Asian movies. So the actors here are a bit cautious, less passionate. Mostly they don't actually kiss but just act as if. With their backs to us, obscured by heads close together. Something like that. Anyway the German girl was not attractive at all. I think he didn't really let himself loose in this movie.

Though we know that he's going to die but I didn't expect him to kill himself. It's sort of sudden. Initially he took the news lightly (rather too calmly). Imagine you're told you'll be dead in the next few hours, you would be totally lost. The build up was not strong enough for the rather touching final scene.

But as always, he's cute, cute, cute.

[deedee]

hi-

please, if you love tttd, forgive me for what i'm about to say. it's only my opinion...

i just saw this movie and a bunch of things about it bugged me so i need to vent a bit.

first off, it struck me as being a try-too-hard new york indie film. the basic plot concept was pretty cool, but the filmmaker didn't do much more than make a self concious mess out of it. lots of things just seemed to happen for more of a whim than a reason. it was the kind of movie where one is supposed to believe that a relatively attractive woman like that german is drop dead gorgeous and a sweet and drop dead gorgeous man struggles to get women to notice him. too much suspension of disbelief for me, i'm afraid. and there were random little affectations, like the italian guy's atrocious accent, and utterly improbable turns of events, like ben gazarra inviting tk to his home and then what happened when he did.

the actors were doing their best but most of them seemed to be working in a vacuum - it seemed like one of those movies where the director didn't really know what he wanted, and the overall effect was emotionally incoherent. jeffrey wright was the glaring exception to this - his character was hilarious and wonderful, and tangential, unfortunately. but then he's an amazing actor - i don't know how many actors could rivet me when they share the screen w/ takeshi, but he sure did it. gretchen mol was hilarious in her cameo as a lower manhattan cretin/skank. sorvino was pretty good (well, not so much when she was playing the man.) and tk did his best with what he had to work with (which was not a whole lot, and i think i've pretty much proved to myself that i'd watch him read the phone book) but this was not his finest acting hour (oh how i'd love to see him in another english-speaking role, with a good director!)

but most grating of all was the look of the movie - how hard did they have to work to make a sleek clotheshorse like tk look that dumpy?? princess mononoke nailed the ugly jeans, but where did they find a jacket that fit him as badly as the white number?? (loved the shirt and tie, though.) and Hye-su Kim is a gorgeous woman - what were they thinking when they put all that makeup on her? and the black and white sections were indeed beautiful, but the color parts were mostly flat and kind of cheesy looking.

and the kissing did look a bit, well, staged, but it was par for the course for this film. (for the record, my fave screen kisser is johnny depp. see benny and joon, don juan de marco. honorable mentions: tom cruise - i'm not a tom cruise fan but he is a talented movie kisser; colin firth - best smolderer in the business; john cusack in say anything.)

there were some lovely bits - i love the the scene with lulu, and the final scene with sorvino resting tk's head on her lap, and the scene where he calls his mom. and of course tk does have that wonderful playful quality that shines through some, but not a whole lot in this movie.

y'know, i really wanted to like this film. maybe the next english language movie tk makes will be great. from what i've read and seen, he's an instinctual actor and doesn't have much formal training, and his best performances are in movies with strong, visionary directors (wkw, when will you put tk in another movie??) maybe one of these days he'll find a great script and a happy medium between befuddled ultra-indie directors and the craptastic hollywood hacks (how about soderbergh? michel gondry? sam mendes? doug liman? danny boyle? pt anderson? wes anderson - ha ha! sofia coppola, even - how ironic would that be?) oh well. someday.

[TickTake]

I think this film had tons of potential, but didn't quite hit the mark. Of course, that could be because there were way too many marks it was trying to hit with less than 2 hours to tell the story. It was almost like reading a book that was filled with way too many incomplete sentences.

I would have preferred to see the friendship between Takeshi's character and Michael Imperioli's character fleshed out more. It was kind of irritating to have it shoved down our throats that there was something, anything to the "relationship" between him and the German chick. It's pretty distracting when you're constantly being told how beautiful she is when she's not really all that! But even if she were drop dead gorgeous, I still wouldn't buy that there was any chemistry between the two. Love (or even just extreme like) in the movies, just as in real life, needs to be developed. My take away was that he took the rejection of the woman harder than the death of his friend...but why!?!

Jeffrey Wright was the second bright spot in this movie. (Let's face it, just having Takeshi on the screen is the brightest spot of all! ) I would love to have seen more scenes between these two. I think they could have really run with that hint of animosity simmering just below the surface. Best line of the movie was when Jeffrey said, "Maybe she has a wrinkle fetish." I loved Takeshi's reaction as well.

Finally, I could have gone the rest of my life without seeing the scene with him and that little brat with whom he shared the cab. Ok filmmakers of the world, I'm officially crying "UNCLE!" The use of children playing characters who act way too old for their age has been done. Can we please move on people! It's especially bad because the scene adds absolutely nothing to the movie and the kid can't act! I'm still trying to figure just out how she advanced the storyline.

That being said, since this movie is part of my collection, and it would be a shame for it to just gather dust, I will be viewing it again from time to time. Go figure! I'll just put it on the "eye candy" stack. Because no matter how bad a film it is, it still has Takeshi going for it. And that's a good thing.

[chinky eyes]

"its decaf"

that line made me smile too!

[aSeattleFanofTK]

rented this movie last night....

Scary is all I can say.

Also, I don't think TK will be doing American movies anytime soon (not that he wants to). His english was too strange sounding to American's ears. It sounded a little british, a little chinese, and a little japanese.

[tatiana]

Impressed with the reviews (P. Mononoke,Deedee, Temptingheart )- film critics could very well be in your future...
My take on the movie-well somewhat disturbing, disjointed and incoherent. ...Not to say that it didn't have it merits. It's almost like they took alot of scenes and tried to make them somehow connect. And there were many things that were just not "buyable". I.e. the german girl as drop-dead gorgeous (yes this has already been mentioned), that TK would out of the blue start pummeling Ben Gazzara, and that TK would do THAT to himself in the end. There was a general lack of emotion which made it even harder to believe/feel this film.
The bright spots in this movie ( for me): TK speaking english, Jeffrey Wright ( he was perfect for the cafe scenes), and Mira Sorvino (her acting was a spot of sunshine ). The only chemistry I felt in this movie was b/ TK and Mira and they weren't even love interests. Not a bad movie, but not one of my favorites..
Would also like to see TK in another english-speaking film with a better director. I think TK has the versatility and desire to do any kind of movie and I would like him to get the opportunity to do so.

[Swellboy]

I hope to see this TK movie preferably sooner than later, due to it being in English and taking place somewhere I've been to. Besides, as I've mentioned elsewhere, I could listen to TK speak anything and enjoy that voice of his, not to mention his movements and beautiful face and bod.