Review of Tears of the Black Tiger (2000) by Paolo A — 28 Aug 2007

Okay, Tears of the Black tiger has been in my DVD wishlist for the longest time. I first saw this THAI movie four years ago and it totally blew my mind. I tried ordering online to no avail. I was able to see it with a friend again who happens to have a bootleg copy just last week and surprisingly the novelty of this movie still strikes a cord.

Man, never have I seen a movie that borrowed a lot from different other movies and totally made something so different, to almost something like you?ve never seen before. Take the premise of this one for example, it heavily borrows from the Cowboy movies of Sam Peckinpah and John Ford? testosterone-filled action story where the tough boys fight for the girl and where the big guns rule.

But this alpha-male of a movie doesn?t end here, if the Hollywood cowboy flicks are deprived of colors, TEARS OF THE BLACK TIGER completely gets its cue from Mary Poppins and paints the screen the most vivid of pallettes, that it?s almost like watching Technicolor on acid. In this movie, Electric Blue, Neon Pink, Chartreuse Green is as common as the shades of Black and Gray in real life.

And if you?re a fan of the Melodramas, you?re in for a roll because this movie will put to shame the most mellows of VIVA and REGAL FILMS combined. Tears of the Black Tiger is a parody of a WESTERN MELODRAMA if ever such genre exists. Poor boy and rich girl fall in love, family is against it, boy promises girl to reunite when the right time comes, but God forbid, even Mother nature had other plans for this star-crossed lovers? boy gets involved in a fire fight, doesn't get in the reunion in time, girl leaves, she gets married to another policeman, while boy gets trouble with his band of brothers..... whoooah... in the end, get this, the movie becomes a full blown revenge on the betrayal of a forbidden love with hyperbolic dialogues to match.

And if you haven?t had enough of the Leone-type Spaghetti westerns, the pop kitsch, the Gosengfiao twists and turns, imagine the gory bloodbath of Tarantino thrown into the blender to add up to the bizarreness of this movie, what you have now is a THAI MOVIE paying homage to the best and worst of Hollywoodlandia.

Director Wisit Sasanatieng?s post modern experiment should be seen as it is, an eyecake that?s best served on desert plates? now you get your nutrition from somewhere else.