The Asian Cinema Critic

Death gives a young man a new lease on life, in Seiji Tanaka’s comedy-drama

“I failed to die and here I am.”

Suicide is a difficult topic to write about at the best of times. Harder yet when what you’re writing is a comedy film. At its core, it’s a sensitive topic, one that will affect a lot of people who have either contemplated or have lost people to it. A lot of films that tackle suicide are often quite life-affirming for this reason, showing that life is worth living, and that the people around you need you, or want to be around you, or that you generally make everything better by being around.

It’s standard stuff for the genre. The Man Who Failed to Die kind of does that, but chooses not to go too far in that direction. Instead, the film decides its main focus is going to be on a ghost who encourages a guy to murder.

It’s a curious decision for a movie to pick, but it’s one that pretty much works here. The titular Man Who Fails to Die is Ippei (Katamari Mizukawa), a sketch comedy writer whose weariness of modern life has caused him to decide to jump in front of a train. However, his chance never comes. The train is cancelled when another man is hit by it. Curious, Ippei finds the man, a senior citizen named Moriguchi (Bokuzo Masana) and attends his funeral, meeting the man’s daughter Aya (Erika Karata) in the process. At home, Moriguchi appears to Ippei as a ghost and coerces him into murdering Aya’s abusive ex Wakamatsu (Yutaka Kyan).

The Man Who Failed to Die is a comedy, but it’s a hell of an understated one. It takes about twenty minutes for the movie to go above a few decibels, and at first is very much presents itself as a quiet contemplative drama. You know, as movies about a man contemplating suicide usually are. Once Moriguchi shows up, though, things start to get a fair bit wackier, with the usual shenanigans you expect whenever a character only one other person can see or hear shows up. Moriguchi’s grumpy no-shits-given phantom is, ironically, the lifeblood of the film, acting as a perfect foil for the dryer style of delivery from Mizukawa.

It’s a fun film, and one that often decides to not take the obvious routes, which is honestly quite refreshing for a movie covering a difficult topic. Maybe it could have done more – more to deal with Ippei’s life, maybe more mysticism or just a stronger theme, but it never really commits which is probably it’s biggest fault. In the end, it plays more like a buddy film with a dynamic we haven’t seen all too often, and this is also fine. Like I said before, not every story about a hard topic has has to be about that. Sometimes they can be about ghosts pestering you until you agree to commit murder.

Verdict: Tonally all over the place, a charming cast and strong direction do a lot to make The Man Who Failed to Die a sweet, silly and sometimes quite serious comedy.

Overall entertainment: 7/10
Violence: 3/10
Sex: 0/10
Suicides: 0
Wada: Has two scenes, steals two scenes
Hauntings: I love that Miruguchi just sort of walks away when he’s done with it all

Director: Seiji Tanaka
Writer: Seiji Tanaka

CAST

Katamari Mizukawa – Ippei Sekiya
Bokuzo Masana – Tomohiro Wakamatsu
Erika Karata – Aya
Yutaka Kyan – Wakamatsu
Miona Hori – Nozomi
Ryu Morioka – Sawamoto
Mild Miura
Koji Abe