Is it a spaghetti Western? Is it a tender romance? Is it a sophisticated drama. No, it's a Thai movie, which means it's all three, with lots of song thrown in. Far East actors are known to go from one film to the next on the same day: it looks as if parts from three different productions got rough-spliced together, no one caring if the joins show. Wisit Sartsanatieng's story, when disentangled from its knotty time structure, concerns a bandit peasant boy and a handsome policeman both in love with a governor's beautiful daughter.
There are painted backdrops as flat as movie posters, actors who declaim or emote without any of the inbetween sounds, photography that looks hand-coloured - big on fluorescent hues and giant on pinks - and naively sentimental sub-titles that date back to silent-cinema days, though I relished the unexpected practicality of the wedding guests' good wishes to the newly weds: "May your love flourish until you're old and grey and walking with sticks."
The scenes with the stars dressed like Wild West dudes and blazing away feature hyperactive bullets that leave people looking like collanders - though bleeding puce - or else meet head on in mid-air and riccochet back to the sender. Despite the title's similar emphasis on exotic world wildlife, it has nothing in common with Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. An oddity, all right: you may find it of interest once. I doubt if you'll want to see its like again.
Tears Of The Black Tiger (Fa Talai Jone)
Cert: cert18
