Fah Talai Jone (Tears of the Black Tiger) (2000)

You might recall how much I enjoyed Thai director Wisit Sasanatieng's stunning, inventive Citizen Dog. If not, well, you should be paying better attention. I was pretty keen to check out his first feature, Tears of the Black Tiger, a strange genre-bender with jaw-dropping visuals. Set in an overly-saturated 50's-esque small town, the film follows the doomed romance of Rumpoey (Stella Malucchi), the exquisitely beautiful daughter of a wealthy governor (Pairoj Jaisingha), and Dum (Chartchai Ngamsan), a stoic commoner who became an outlaw after his family was murdered.

Rumpoey is being married off to the stiff Police Captain Kunjorn (Arawat Ruangvuth), and has no idea that her fiancé has taken it upon himself to besiege the outlaw gang Dum has joined under the moniker "Black Tiger". She spends a lot of her time sighing and staring into the distance while a single tear graces her perfectly made-up cheek, while Dum regretfully kills a lot of police officers and stares mournfully into that same exact distance. Will their disparate backgrounds continue to separate them, or will Rumpoey and Dum find a way to be together? How many men have to die violently before this can happen?


While it isn't perfect, Tears of the Black Tiger is a wonder of color, action, parody, and cinematography. Every single shot is a visual feast (literally, my eyes wanted to eat it), filled to the brim with eye-popping shades of yellows, blues, and reds, theatrical locations, and perfectly-tuned costumes. Sasanatieng's vision of the world is uncommonly beautiful to the point of fantasy, and I would love to live in his candy-colored version of things. There's also a lively classic western-ish score that gives it all an adventurous, anachronistic atmosphere.

The acting is purposefully over the top, with each character reduced to a stereotype of a 50's western. The lady can't do anything for herself and cries all the time, while the male lead is strong and noble, with little display of emotion. As Dum's fellow gangmember Mahesuan, Supakorn Kitsuwon is having the most fun: he gives an over the top, slightly crazed performance that is aided by his (possibly made of paper?) pencil mustache. I get the joke they're going for, but it doesn't always go over well- because the lead characters are fairly flat, I didn't especially care about their romance, but it is given a lot of attention. I wanted a bit more of the bang-bang-action-gunfighting! than the film was prepared to give me, so the whole thing feels uneven.

Tears of the Black Tiger is a visual marvel and features some really funny parodical concepts and performances, but for me it doesn't go as far as it could have. I think it needed to be just a little bit more over the top, a little bit funnier, and/or a little bit more violent, and it would have been a truly excellent genre parody/homage. That being said, it's still a pretty imaginative and entertaining film that I'd be happy to see again.

4/5