tigertail (2020)

[adevyish]

I’m kind of mixed on this film. I really wanted to love it. It was a bit too slow at times; likely I would have appreciated this film more in a theatre setting but alas it’s a Netflix original. There were some choices in writing and casting made that I felt made the film weaker.

I don’t think it was necessary to show the father’s entire backstory to explain why he’s the way he is. I’m fine with the flashback structure of the film, but at one point there was a flashback within a flashback and — no. It felt at times that the film would have been stronger if it had focused more on the daughter and the father-daughter relationship, instead of making the daughter solely a vessel for expressing the father’s suppressed grief.

Tigertail shows its inspiration from Taiwanese New Wave cinema quite clearly in its aesthetics and music. It’s also shown in the childhood scene with the soldiers, placing the film firmly in the White Terror era. Oddly, it never touches on those politics again. That specific scene also clearly calls out the politics in speaking Mandarin versus Taigi (Taiwanese Hokkien), and yet the English subtitles mislabelled Taigi as Mandarin in that very scene.

There’s a spectrum of “the Mandarin accent of people who grew up speaking Taigi” to “the prestige Mandarin accent taught in schools” that most Taiwanese people fall on.¹ However four cast members who play characters who ought to fall on this spectrum do not do so — in fact older versions of two characters had accents that were completely different from their younger counterparts. The acting itself was great, but whenever some line or plot mentioned Taiwaneseness, the fourth wall broke.

Fundamentally, however, film as an art is about storytelling and “of human beings trying to convey emotional, psychological experiences to another human being”,² and in that Tigertail succeeded. I did nearly cry twice.

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¹ Exceptions being indigenous people, people who grew up speaking Hakka, and 1st gen immigrants such as 1st gen waishenren
² Martin Scorcese

Comments

[superborb]

When accents are wrong, it bothers me so much. I don't understand the reluctance to dub in those situations (though I guess the US doesn't have as much of that infrastructure).

[adevyish]

I get that “three Taiwanese Mandarin-speaking actors who can also speak English and are over the age of 50” is a bit of an ask, but I feel like it should not be impossible? Especially when the film is based on the director’s dad’s story and has language politics in it. I’m not the biggest fan of dubbing but in this situation it might have been the best compromise.