Tears Of The Black Tiger

Parody is a tricky one. Camp parody is even tricker. What about Thai camp parody?

If you're not a movie buff, who appreciates the finer nuances of a veiled reference to a 1930s cinematographer's camera technique, for example, Tears Of The Black Tiger will look like a B movie, in which actors ham it up in absurd clothes, pretending to be gunfighters from a Howard Hughes epic.

Does that matter? Those who love kitsch and enjoy the unreality of stage musicals will adore the colours, because they're fully in bloom. Those who go to pantomimes simply to laugh at a pop star, will laugh at this. Those who relish the contradiction of something so bad it's good, will wallow like pigs in clover. Those who love Westerns for the breadth and scope of their vision, will loathe every moment.

Dom is a peasant boy who makes friends with a girl from a posh family. In Thailand, that isn't supposed to happen. Anyway, he grows up into a keen student and they meet again at college, by chance, and she falls in love with him and they agree to meet at the place they called their own when they were young. Anyway, he doesn't make it, because his family has been murdered by bandits and he joins a better, bigger gang to take revenge.

She cries, goes home to daddy and marries the police captain they have arranged for her. He's a handsome fellow and a better actor than the sculptured marble, known as Dom, not that it makes any difference. Her heart is broken.

Meanwhile Dom and his new gunslinger pal, a loudmouthed show-off, who plays for laughs, are behaving like bad guys from The Magnificent Seven. Later, in a more audacious raid, Dom and the police captain come face to face. It has to be. The final showdown. Husband vs lover.

By this stage, camp followers are rolling in the aisles, equally appreciative of narrow hips and a Village People wardrobe. Others, less sophisticated in the language of parody, will be wondering whether Tears Of The Black Tiger has a cult arthouse following being an Eastern pretending to be a Western, with Bollywood influences.