Tears of the Black Tiger

Tears of the Black Tiger (Thai: ฟ้าทะลายโจร, or Fah talai jone, literally, "the heavens strike the thief") is a 2000 Thai western film written and directed by Wisit Sasanatieng. The story of a tragic romance between Dum, a fatalistic, working-class hero, who has become an outlaw, and Rumpoey, the upper-class daughter of a provincial governor, it is equal parts homage to and parody of Thai action films and romantic melodramas of the 1950s and 1960s.

The film was the first from Thailand to be selected for competition at the 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 Awards for Best New Director. It also won many awards in Thailand for production and costume design, special effects and soundtrack.

Critics have noted the film's stylized use of color and conspicuous violence, and have compared it to the revisionist westerns of Sergio Leone and Sam Peckinpah. It has also been compared to the works of such directors as Douglas Sirk, John Woo, Jean-Luc Goddard, Sam Raimi and Quentin Tarantino.

Miramax Films purchased the film for distribution in the United States, but changed the ending and then shelved it indefinitely. In 2006, the distribution rights were obtained by Magnolia Pictures, which screened the original version of the film in a limited release from January to April 2007 in several US cities.

Plot

A young woman waits in the rain under an ornate gazebo in a lotus pond. She carries with her a photo of the man she is waiting for.

The man, whose name is Dum, is with another gunman named Mahesuan. Dressed all in black and wearing a cowboy hat, Dum enters a house and fires his pistol. The bullet ricochets around before it burrows into a man's forehead. A red title card then flashes up and says: "Did you catch that? If not, we'll play it again!" And the shot is replayed in slow motion, showing the bullet bouncing off items in a Rube Goldberg fashion.

Dum then rushes off, galloping his horse across the plain. However, by the time he reaches the gazebo, the woman, whose name is Rumpoey, is gone. She has returned home, where she is to be engaged to Police Captain Kumjorn in a marriage arranged by her father, the provincial governor.

Mahesuan is bitter about his status as a sidekick to Dum. He was the best gunman in the outlaw gang headed by the brutal Fai, until Dum came along. Eager to settle the score, Mahesuan goes looking for Dum and finds him playing a harmonica. Mahesuan knocks it out of Dum's hand and baits him into a gunfight. The quick-drawing Dum fires first, but Mahesuan is not injured. However, a dead snake drops from an overhanging tree branch onto Mahesuan's cowboy hat. Dum killed the venomous snake, saving Mahesuan's life.
Dum then thinks back to his childhood 10 years ago during the Second World War, when Rumpoey and her father left the city to stay on Dum's father's small farm in rural Thailand.

Rumpoey is a demanding girl. She smashes a bamboo flute that Dum is playing and demands that he take her on a boat ride in the lotus pond. They visit the gazebo, or sala in Thai language, and it is called "Sala Awaiting the Maiden." Dum says a woodcutter built it to await a wealthy family's daughter whom he had fallen in love with. However, the maiden was prevented from meeting the woodcutter, so she hung herself. Rumpoey is touched by the story.

On the way home, they collide with a boat carrying three boys, who taunt Rumpoey. Dum defends Rumpoey, is struck with an oar and then their boat overturns. He rescues Rumpoey but is late in coming home. So he is punished by his father, who lashes the boy's back with a rattan cane. Rumpoey, feeling sorry for getting Dum into trouble, buys him a harmonica to replace the flute she broke.
Shifting back to present time, Dum and Mahesuan ride to an old Buddhist temple, where they swear a blood oath in front of the Buddha statue.

Meanwhile, Captain Kumjorn is eager to bring law and order to the wild west of Suphanburi Province. In an attack on Fai’s hide-out, the police forces seem to be gaining the upper hand. But then Dum and Mahesuan arrive on a cliff overlooking the battle and use grenade launchers to decimate the police. Kumjorn is captured, and Dum is ordered by Fai to execute him. Kumjorn pleads with Dum to tell his fiancée of his fate, and he pulls out a framed photo of his beloved. Dum is stunned to see a photo of Rumpoey. Mahesuan enters to find Kumjorn gone and Dum with a knife in his chest.

As Dum's wound is being treated, he thinks back to one year ago, when he was a university student in Bangkok, where he became re-acquainted with Rumpoey. Dum pleads with her to leave him alone, reasoning that they are from different social classes and are fated to never be together. Later, Rumpoey is attacked by a gang of male students, the same boys from her childhood boat accident. Dum comes to her rescue but ends up expelled. Rumpoey finds Dum walking, and offers to give him a ride in her car. She then instructs her driver to take them to a nearby beach. Dum and Rumpoey confide their love for each other, and they agree to meet a year later at Sala Awaiting the Maiden.

However, Dum arrives at home and finds his father murdered. He takes his father’s rifle, tracks the killers and shoots some of them. With one bullet left, he turns the gun on himself, but is stopped by Fai, who has ridden up with his horsemen. Fai recognizes the rifle, saying he had given it to Dum’s father years before. Fai then hands Dum a pistol and tells him to finish the job of killing the men who murdered his father. Dum is now an outlaw.

Shifting back to the present, where it is the night before Rumpoey's wedding to Kumjorn, she tries to hang herself, but is stopped by her maid. Fai, meanwhile, plans to attack the governor's mansion, and Mahesuan, suspecting that Dum intentionally let Kumjorn go free, betrays Dum. A gun battle ensues, but Dum escapes.
Dum, dressed in a white suit, appears at the wedding and warns Kumjorn of Fai's plans to attack. Kumjorn, however, wants to shoot the man he knows as the "Black Tiger" and is his rival for Rumpoey's affection. Fai's men attack and Mahesuan breaks into the mansion, where he discovers Rumpoey, and knocks her unconscious. Mahesuan is carrying Rumpoey away when he meets Dum and demands a rematch gunfight. As a raindrop drips through a hole in the brim of Mahesuan's hat, Dum fires and the bullet rips through Mahesuan's teeth.

Dum, next confronted by Kumjorn, reaches into his pocket. Kumjorn, believing that he is reaching for his gun, shoots Dum. But Dum was only reaching for the photograph of Rumpoey that Kumjorn had once carried. As Dum lays dying in the rain with Rumpoey sobbing over him, some of Dum's words from earlier are narrated again – that life is suffering, punctuated only by a never-ending search for happy moments.

/