Tears of a black tiger takes a journey back to a lost past - the heroic years of Thai genre cinema, when influences from Hollywood and everywhere else were subsumed into rollicking Thai melodramas. The film centres on the handsome bandit Black Tiger (Chartchai Ngamsan), who's in love with a high-born lady - a union made more difficult because her father plans to marry her off to the police Captain in charge of wiping out Tiger's forest-dwelling gang.
A brilliant pastiche of varnished themes, styles and characters, director Wisit Sasanatieng pays homage to old movies from around the world, with a cross between spaghetti westerns, songs of high romance and contemporary Bollywood. Using tricks of 1950s film Styles - the remarkable lurid Technicolour of neon pinks, oranges and turquoises - Tears of a black tiger is one of the year's most unique - and fun - cinema experiences.
Special Agent Matti
Well, it's certainly everything that the propaganda says it is: heroic, spaghetti western, lurid. All you can do is sit back and enjoy the ride.
MA 15+ (High level violence)
101 minutes (1:51 hours)
Film: 7 November 2002 - Melbourne
Film: 5 December 2002 - Sydney
