I know a number of single and divorced women who complain of the difficulties of finding a suitable mate. I wonder whether Too Young to Die, a very short Korean feature that lasts barely an hour, would give hope or remove all desire. I assume director Park Jin-pyo (who went on to direct Voice of a Murderer and You Are My Sunshine) wants to assure us, even celebrate, that love and sex are possible at any age: Look at his leading man Park Chi-gyu. This toothless old geezer falls for the equally wrinkled Lee Sun-ye as if struck by Cupid's arrow then dyes his hair and has her move in before you can flip the page of his calendar. And why would you touch that calendar? There's a lot to learn from the month on display: Park notes every time the two fornicate or she sucks him off -- acts which we see fairly graphically. I'm no prude about geriatric lovemaking. I'd even go so far as to say that Park has an amazingly muscled ass and a decent technique despite his years. But the soft core porn here is poorly lit, Park's kissing skills are atrocious, and the dialogue is so corny that I can only assume, Lee Soo-mee is the screenwriter's pseudonym.
Granted the movie isn't just groping and humping. It also has an absurdly long scene of Park exercising/dancing on the rooftop after banging Lee, some arguments that sound improvised and unedited, and a couple of music lessons during which a Janggo-drumming Lee teaches Park the "Song of Youth." None of it's horrible. Which isn't to say any of it's good. There are strange moments like one in which a laughing Lee accidentally glances at the camera, and jarringly naturalistic ones like when Park scrubs his dentures clean before popping them back in his mouth. Will it rekindle dormant beliefs that love can arrive anyplace at anytime? Sure. But there's a catch. You'll have to be willing to fall for whomever is there.
