Tears Of The Black Tiger

Attention cult film fans: you have a new Holy Grail.  The film is called Tears Of The Black Tiger and you must seek it out wherever it may be. Director/writer Wisit Sasanatieng’s first and thus far only film, Tears Of The Black Tiger, is a dizzying, delirious experience in pure camp cinema, one that would undoubtedly be a major international smash had it come from just about any film-producing country other than Thailand.  Thailand has been the overlooked distant relative in the Asian film world for years, and though the rise of the incredibly talented Pang brothers has brought the country some much deserved attention, it may have come too late for films like Tears Of The Black Tiger.

So what is this thing and why get so excited?  Part parody and part serious homage, Tears Of The Black Tiger is a film completely out of time and place, something completely and totally unexpected from Asian cinema: a 40’s era cowboy melodrama shot in glorious Technicolor, or, in this case, a no-name Technicolor substitute.  Tears Of The Black Tiger tells the story of Dum, a young peasant boy who falls in love with Rumpoey, the daughter of the local governor.

The two want to be married but can’t due to social circumstances. Dum vows to make himself worthy of Rumpoey and make her his own and heads off to find his fortune.  He falls in with a group of gangsters and eventually becomes the right-hand man in the gang, known to all as the Black Tiger, feared fastest gun in the land.  Back in Bangkok, Rumpoey eventually abandons hope of ever hearing from Dum again and allows herself to be pressured into an engagement with a local police captain determined to bring down Dum’s gang.  Will the lovers ever be reunited?

Sure, it’s a basic enough story, but Sasanatieng films it with style to burn. I imagine at some point, the young director came to the somewhat obvious conclusion that taking a bunch of young Thai men and dressing them in old western garb, right down to the cowboy hats, ammunition belts, and pencil line moustaches was really kind of silly.  This conclusion left him to make a decision: either scale things back so people will take his work seriously or plant tongue firmly in cheek, ramp up the camp value as far as it will possibly go, and take people on one serious cinematic ride. Sasanatieng chose door number two.  

The film’s colors are as deeply saturated as the film stock can handle; Rumpoey is continually shot in that soft focus half light so popular in film’s “golden era”; characters are constantly striking ridiculous poses and mock serious expressions; scenes are shot on sets specifically - and gloriously - designed to showcase their artificiality; scenes are shot from extreme angles; every western cliché you can possibly think of is trotted out and proudly showcased; and the key shoot out sequences are gloriously, sublimely silly.

Tears Of The Black Tiger is a parade of film excesses all packed together in a way that makes it perfectly clear that the director, cast, and crew were all having the time of their lives.  An example?  Take the first appearance of Dum as the Black Tiger.  It comes right at the beginning of the film where the old style filming approach is quite evident but it’s not yet quite clear whether the director expects us to take the film seriously.  The Black Tiger is sent to execute a man who turned on the gang’s boss and, along with an accomplice, storms the turncoat’s hideout with guns blazing.

Bullets fly, bodies drop, and finally Dum makes it to a back room where he can see his quarry’s reflection in a mirror as he hides behind a pillar at the room’s far end.  Dum turns as if to leave and fires a shot that must ricochet a good five or six times before finally arriving dead between his target’s eyes.  “Did you see that?“  A title card proclaims proudly, “Let’s look at it again!“  And, true to his word, Sasanatieng shows it to us again, this time slower and in close up.  It’s a brilliant moment, absolutely hysterical, and one that lets us know that although the director seems to have a genuine appreciation for the genre, he’s planning on nodding and winking his way through this film and invites us to do the same.

There are two reasons Tears Of The Black Tiger works where so many films of this type fail.  First is the script.  The writing here is really quite tight and the script follows a plotline that could quite realistically have been made into a serious film back in the western’s heyday.  Sure, there’s a lot of humor in the film, but it comes from the director being aware that this type of writing is so incredibly out of step with current times - the humor is all tonal and visual.  The script itself plays things straight.

Second is the obvious skill of all involved.  The actors all deliver good performances, giving their characters depth and weight where appropriate while never taking themselves too seriously.  Visually the film is a delight - Sasanatieng shoots beautiful film and a lot of the pleasure comes not from him goofing on the material but from the sheer audaciousness of what he’s doing and the shock of seeing all of these old techniques as though for the first time.  

An instant classic, Tears Of The Black Tiger is a true joy to watch and has been sadly overlooked.  The official DVD release can be had cheap - though you’ll need a multi region DVD player to watch it - at www.ethaicd.com.

Written by Chris Brown.

• 3
• Jan 25, 2004, 12:00am