One of the most elaborate productions ever mounted in Thailand, Tears of the Black Tiger is a candy-colored Western made in the high-energy style that characterizes much contemporary Thai cinema. The plot is a traditional boy-meets-girl, boy-loses-girl, boy-gets-girl-again story that references both classic American Westerns and Thai folk tales. Poor boy Dum (Chartchai Ngamsan) and rich girl Rumpoey (Stella Malucchi) first lay eyes on each other as children when her family escapes Bangkok to his country hometown during World War II. When they meet again ten years later, they fall instantly in love and decide to marry. But the disapproval of her parents and a band of rampaging bandits led by the villainous Mahesuan (Supakorn Kitsuwon) combine to threaten their plans for future happiness. ~ Tom Vick, All Movie Guide
Review by All Movie Guide
All Movie Guide
liked it.
Tears of the Black Tiger sports paper-thin characters and a completely predictable plot, but the story is hardly the point of this exuberant pop-art confection. Director Wisit Sasanatieng, a strong advocate for film preservation in Thailand and clearly a rabid film buff, packs his film with winking references to the entire history of Westerns, from 1940s B-movies to
Clint Eastwood's
Man With No Name. He even quotes the famous opening scene from
Sergio Leone's
Once Upon a Time in the West. Sasanatieng's exuberant style, with its quick-cutting action scenes and close-ups of faces, guns, and bullets, certainly owes something to Leone, but what has given this film its considerable buzz at film festivals and in theaters in Europe and Asia is its sizzling neon-pastel color scheme, which looks like nothing else in cinema. Every shot is coated in dazzlingly bright turquoise and chartreuse, with pinks and reds so intense they nearly hurt the eyes. Sasanatieng achieved this effect by transferring the film's negative to video, then juicing up the colors as far as they could go before transferring the finished product back to film. The bizarre tone set by this visual scheme is augmented by the actors' performances, which are intentionally, and ridiculously, over the top. They even deliver their lines in what can only be described as a Thai variation on the Western drawl. An infectious burst of creativity from a director bursting with talent, Tears of the Black Tiger may finally bring overdue attention to a country that unfortunately rarely registers on the world cinema scene. ~ Tom Vick, All Movie Guide