Tears of the Black Tiger

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Audience Member Tears of the Black Tiger (Fa Thalai Chon, literally, The Heavens Strike the Thief) is a 2000 Thai action-adventure film written and directed and written by Wisit Sasanatieng. It was distributed by Five Star Production. It stars Chartchai Ngamsan, Stella Malucchi, Supakorn Kitsuwon and Sombat Metanee. Over-saturated colors were used to reflect scenes of rural Thailand, which the director saw as bright and colourful. Walls on the sets and locations were painted pink or green and lighting was used to achieve the saturation. The film was treated in the color grading process by transferring it to digital Betacam tape and then back to 35 millimeter film. Oxide Pang, working as a telecine colorist, won a special effects award in Thailand for his work. The film was the first from Thailand to be selected for competition at the 2001 Cannes Film Festival, where it was critically hailed. It was screened at several other film festivals in 2001 and 2002, including the Vancouver International Film Festival, where it won the Dragons and Tigers Award for Best New Director, the Seattle International Film Festival, the Edinburgh International Film Festival and the Sundance Film Festival in 2001 and the International Film Festival Rotterdam, the Deauville Asian Film Festival and the Moscow International Film Festival in 2002. Vision wrote: "it is in equal parts a homage to and parody of Thai action films and romantic melodramas of the 1950s and 1960s. Real fast-paced action choreography. A little bit sloppy though and repetitive. Too much takes. A spoof of a western. Admire the Thai spin on it. It looked as if the scenes were filmed with picturesque sets that were obvious. Comical. An advancement in Thai cinematography. Admire the childhood flashbacks. Admire the red river. The girl is obnoxious though and acts like a child. She even carries a stuffy. Two and a half fries for effort!" Rated 2.5/5 Stars •  Rated 2.5 out of 5 stars 05/29/25 Full Review Audience Member A very nicely stylised genre flick let down by an old fashioned and unreformed story. Rated 3/5 Stars •  Rated 3 out of 5 stars 02/20/23 Full Review Audience Member The thin line between stylish and cheesy... Rated 3.5/5 Stars •  Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars 02/23/23 Full Review Audience Member Cliche & over-the-top but mostly in right ways Rated 3.5/5 Stars •  Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars 01/22/23 Full Review Audience Member I've only seen Thailand martial movies and only one out the dozens I have seen was any good. So I chose to explore Thai cinema outside of the Martial Art genre, which failed to change my outlook on Thai cinema. Tears of the Black Tiger is certainly one of the better Thai films I've seen, but its many references to classic westerns keep reminding of other superior films I could be watching. Tear of the Black Tiger is a parody as well as a homage to the Western and the romantic tearjerker. The plot here is so-so, its simply there and goes by without much to give us. The movie dialogue is more corny than a Spanish soap opera. It uses many of the cliches of the western genre which it pokes fun of, but becomes cliche itself for using to much of them. Contains over the top violence; like a man flipping in the air after being shot with a pistol in the mouth. Surprisingly the violence here uses tons of blood whenever someone is killed. The acting is good though ultimately underwhelming due to the lack of screen time some of the actors get. This is a classic case of style over substance. Most of the efforts went into the unique and sometime odd color scheme of the visuals. Some of the shootouts even if over the top were fun to watch. As a fan of the western genre I enjoyed the film offering, but it gets caught up in reminding us of past influential films and failing to give the audiences something new in the process. Tears of the Black Tiger takes inspiration from superior films and fails to capture the same essence as its influences. It's good if you want to past the time, just do not go into this expecting anything as from the genre usual standards. Rated 3/5 Stars •  Rated 3 out of 5 stars 02/11/23 Full Review Audience Member If it had more humour it would be a full-blown parody. Apart from the deliberately colourful set designs, cinematography and method of acting, this is a pretty conventional storyline. It's all lost on me as I don't have any nostalgia for that sort of genre. Rated 3/5 Stars •  Rated 3 out of 5 stars 01/23/23 Full Review Read all reviews

Tears of the Black Tiger

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