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Pretty Good

Let's be realistic.

Good movie but grossly overrated

If you like to be scared, if you like to laugh, and if you like to learn a thing or two at the movies, this absolutely cannot be missed.

Parody/homage/ pastiche/(take your pick) film thats a send up of romance movies and Italian westerns. so over the top you'll wonder if there ever was a top, this is one wild ride, even by Thai movie standards.With blood and gore and painted backgrounds mixing with real locations and a very deliberate sense of reality this film is either going to strike you as a master piece or a piece of cow flop. I'm somewhere in the middle-leaning towards the dislike camp. The problem for me its so artificial I that I was watching the wheels and gears whir instead of watching the story unfold. I also am not really in love with the idea that this is almost two hours long. Overwhelmed with the artifice I turned it off a good clip in. The reaction is not really unexpected since I have a real love hate relations hip with the Thai film industry where I find I either lover or hate the films, there is no rhyme or reason other than I dislike most Thai horror films I stumble upon on my own.Is Black Tiger worth seeing (or should that be trying?)? Hell yea. There is nothing like it for shaking the dust from the notion of all movies are the same. There is nothing like this I've ever seen in the west and very few in the east.

I've borrowed this DVD from the library twice before, but never had the chance to watch it, until now. The appeal is actually to see some of Thai director Wisit Sasanatieng's past works, before his up and coming made-in-Singapore flick called Armful. And I've heard some good things about this movie too.The story combines two different genres into one, the first being a cowboy western, (set in Thailand no less!) and the usual star-crossed lover romance. Perhaps the novelty of the first genre type is having Thai folks dress up as cowboys, riding on their steed and somehow, becoming the villains as they plunder and kill. Yup, they're not the good guys, against the usual stereotype. Here, the cowboys are bandits, and the good folks are naturally, the cops.But amongst all the bad hats (pardon the pun), there's always the hero who's forced by circumstances to join the group. Dum (Chartchai Ngamsan), also known as the notorious Black Tiger, renowned fastest and deadliest draw in all of Thailand, has a childhood sweetheart in Rumpoey (Sttella Malucchi). However, their difference in status (he's the son of a servant, while she, the daughter of the governor) meant that it's a forbidden romance to begin with. Knowing his place in her world, he could only admire from afar, becoming her protector, shielding her from harm (like numerous approaches by lechers and bandits).A man gotta do what a man gotta do, and during one of his missions, he failed to meet up with Rumpoey presumably to elope, while she took it as a sign that he didn't want to. Like Romeo and Juliet, she's betrothed to Kumjorn (Arawat Ruangyuth), a police captain captured by Dum's notorious gangster boss Fai (Sombat Metanee). And like all star crossed lovers whose lives are played by Fate, these events start to spin and take on a life of its own, changing the course of our characters lives forever.It's a beautifully shot movie, with plenty of pastel colours draping the sets, which at times make you cringe and beg for it to stop. As if to complement its saccharine sweet and sentimental love story, it elevates the movie to a surreal dream like level. The action sequences can be quite cheesy, with the reminiscence of old spaghetti cowboy western gun fights. But the best bits about the film, are the songs. I don't understand Thai, but even if without the subtitles interpreting the lyrics, I thought that they were beautiful enough to accentuate scenes in the movie.Perhaps my only gripe about the movie in this version of the DVD, is that the bloody violence had been censored, depriving me the bloody glee of watching the Black Tiger dispatch his opponents with his accuracy. There were scenes where footsoldiers bled by the bucketloads of ketchup, but the crucial one-on-ones were totally censored, and you wouldn't know the nitty gritty details of the death. Truly marred my enjoyment of the movie. What gives?Code 3 DVD contains some extras, like Extracts from the Book - Black Tiger's Philosophy and Rumpoey's Guilt, explaining a bit more about the lead characters, Insights into the Film Aesthetic takes a look at the Sala Raw Nang, or "Awaiting the Maiden", the quintessential Thai shelter, and how Rattana Pestonji (indie Thai filmmaker) had influenced the set design, especially the colours. The extras is topped off with a one static screen Director's Inspiration, and the list of awards which this film has won.

When I went to see that movie at a cinema a few years ago, I only heard that it was supposed to be good and hadn't read anything else about it. I was in for a treat! At first I wasn't sure if this movie was serious or if it was more like a spoof. That became pretty clear after a few minutes into the movie. It was meant to be funny, but that didn't mean that you didn't care about the characters. Quite the contrary was the case. Whenever you laughed with the characters, you began to like them a little more and more ... Which ultimately worked very good for the drama parts of the movie.This movie walks a very thin line, between comedy and drama. But it never fails to deliver on both occasions. The movie breaks the illusion of being a movie very quickly, also. But that doesn't affect the drama. Although you can see painted backgrounds or back-screen projections in cars (latter are in black-and-white, the movie itself is in color) that doesn't distract.The movie has rich colors which reminded me a little bit of Bollywood movies. That's without all the singing and dancing, so don't worry! ;o) If you like your movies a little off beat and weird, go out and watch this one! Don't forget: It's OK to laugh! :o)

Version: Thai audio, English subtitles (by SBS) There's something quite awesome about a movie that's advertised as a musical western that turns out to be a musical western in which the cowboys carry rocket launchers and wear very colourful shirts. Awesome.In the rather colourful countryside of the rather colourful modern Thailand, a gang of horse-riding, machine-gun toting, Thai cowboys led the by the colourfully villainous Fai (Sombat Metanee). Dum (Chartchai Ngamsan), also known as the Black Tiger, is a member of Fai's gang, and obviously the fastest shot in all the (colourful) land. Dum is competing with fellow gangster Mahesuan the police captain Kumjorn for the affections of Rumpoey (Stella Malucchi), so naturally this leads to shootouts, exploding brains, and lots of evil laughs. How awesome.'Tears of the Black Tiger' seems to be a combination of elements from 'Once Upon a Time in the West' and the 'The Quick and the Dead', only with a lot more comedy and melodrama. And colour. At times it may resemble 'Once Upon a Time in the the West', and then go into Sam Raimi mode during an action sequence, and then go into long scenes developing the melodramatic and colourful love story. Have I mentioned the colour yet? This one colourful movie, and will often induce a visual overload of pinkness. Is that even a word?'Tears of the Black Tiger' can go from melodramatic romance scenes, to the cheap violence that you might expect from Sam Raim or an early Peter Jackson movie (read: 'exploding heads') very quickly. I'm pretty sure this film could set a record in that department. Its a funny movie, and the action scenes are generally very exciting. I'm also convinced that the creators of this film took on a bet to discover just how much of the colour pink can be displayed in one movie. I never knew pink-shirted cowboys could be so tough.'Tears of the Black Tiger' is generally entertaining. I thought it was a little long, but I think most people should enjoy this - 8/10