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TEARS
OF THE BLACK TIGER
6/10
Thailand
2000
director
/ script : Wisit Sasanatieng
cinematography : Nattawut Kittikhun
editing : Dusanee Puinongpho
lead actors : Chartchai Ngamsan, Stella Malucchi, Supakorn Kitsuwon, Sombati
Medhanee
100 minutes
According
to writer-director Sasanatieng, his “presiding inspiration was probably
the director Rattana Pestonji, who was never exactly in the mainstream
of the industry in the 1950s or 1960s.” Which makes you
wonder what the point is of showing Black Tiger to Western audiences
who’d be unfamiliar with even mainstream Thai cinema from four
decades ago. The answer: another Tiger, this time of the Crouching
variety. Not that Tears has any chance of emulating Ang Lee’s
Oscar-garlanded blockbuster – but some European and American viewers’
palates may well have been whetted for another blast of romantic, action-packed
exotica.
And
Tears of the Black Tiger is certainly a different kind of
experience. Regardless of how it nods back to Thai predecessors,
the colour scheme is a dazzling riot of excess. There are no blues, reds
or greens in Kittikhun’s gloriously artificial world: skies are electric
turquoise; blood is day-glow mauve; grass is fluorescent emerald. Sasanatieng’s
eye crafts some striking compositions – breathtaking, hand-coloured shots
of phantom horses galloping through muddy streams; a scarlet stream winding
its way through impossibly verdant vegetation. And he also has an exciting
way with action sequences – Peckinpah would be proud of these explosive
gunfights, including one remarkable moment where a bad guy’s teeth burst
out of his mouth in ivory fragments.
But,
as with Crouching Tiger, the stylistic delights are inevitably
weighed down by the earthbound necessities of the plot. In this, Black
Tiger also recalls another recent box-office hit from the far East,
Wong Kar-Wai’s In The
Mood For Love. Tears is essentially a romance between fearless
gunslinger Seau Dum, the ‘Black Tiger’ (Ngamsan) and beautiful aristocrat
Rumpoey (Malucchi), and the pair must cope with the inevitable obstacles
placed in their path by fate, destiny, society and an over-imaginative
screenwriter. Too often, the romantic ups and downs bring the film to
a grinding halt - as with Mood For Love, considerable audience
concentration and patience is demanded. A quirk of the soundtrack may
make this difficult for British audiences – the repeated Dvorak theme
will have them expecting to see a kid on an old-fashioned bicycle, loaf
of Hovis underarm.
19th
June, 2001
by Neil
Young
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