No American romantic fireworks here, just a simple Asian story of social distancing that struggles to be free.
Tigertail
Grade: A-
Director: Alan Yang (Master of None)
Screenplay: Yang (We Love You)
Cast: Tzi Ma (The Farewell), Christine Ko (Dave)
Rating: PG
Runtime: 1h 31m
By: John DeSando
Writer-director Alan Yang has absorbed the full measure of auteur Wong Kar Wai, whose lovingly intimate In the Mood for Love is my litmus test for modern Asian cinema at its best. Although Netflix’s Tigertail, set in Taiwan and the US, may be more realistic than Mood, it captures a middle-aged Ping Jui (Tzi Ma) romanticizing his past as he struggles to connect with his estranged daughter, Angela (Christine Ko) in the present. It echoes in a reverse way The Farewell.
Do not look to this drama for an eye-popping American love story, for it is Asian in its restraint and its lyrical understatement. After facing deep disappointment as an immigrant to America with his arranged wife, handsome Ping adjusts to the realities of life and the boredom of his marriage.
Salving his despair are the images of his former love, Yuan (Joan Chen), whom he left to go to America on his factory boss’s dime and with the boss’s daughter as bride. Although American romances often end with a pleasant alignment, Yang does not indulge us on such fantasies.
Tigertail smacks us with the vagaries of immigration, not the thorny process the news underlines today but rather the disappointment an immigrant might experience as he watches his American dream collapse under the weight of a reality check that includes substandard housing and menial jobs.
The latter part of Tigertail is about the glacial change that comes to Ping after his mom dies, his wife leaves him, and he must try to connect with Angela, unaccustomed as he is to saying anything much of anything to her. His Asian paternalism and cold restraint make communication challenging.
The painful reunion is the strength of the film: Most of us have at least one family member we should reach out to, but we may lack the willingness or interpersonal skills. Yet, those skills can come slowly but surely as we face them to overcome them.
Tigertail is a small drama filled with humanity, superior acting, and enviable cinematography. John Ford would be happy to see how Yang honors him with a final shot that recalls the famous frame shot in The Searchers. Tzi is no John Wayne, but they share characters with a remoteness that plagues cultures and families for all times.
As we struggle with the pandemic’s demand for social distancing, Tigertail shows the effects of it in everyday real life.
John DeSando, a Los Angeles Press Club first-place winner for National Entertainment Journalism, hosts WCBE’s It’s Movie Time and co-hosts Cinema Classics. Contact him at JohnDeSando62@gmail.com.
