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“Tigertail” follows the life of a Taiwanese man, Pin-Jui, who goes through the hardships of moving to America to have a better life. His missed opportunities and failure to meet expectations reveal that America is nothing like he had dreamed it would be.
With this movie being in Mandarin Chinese, Taiwanese, and English, some of the scenes can get somewhat complicated if you’re not paying close attention to the film. I found it more engaging than anything else because reading the captions made it a lot easier to follow the plot. Yet, I can understand how other people could be bothered by them. Seeing that it switched between three different languages, twenty minutes into the movie, I had no clue what anyone’s name was, which, oddly enough, was the most confusing thing about the entire film.
One thing that got annoying in this film was the repetitive music. It gave some depth to the story and filled in the parts with no dialogue. However, it was difficult to listen to the same gloomy piece of music repeatedly.
On the other hand, the flashbacks between Pin-Jui’s past and present self are absolutely beautiful. The stunning camera changes are very visually captivating, and it genuinely felt like his flashbacks were filmed years before. It is an extremely dramatic story, and the different cameras and angles captured that remarkably.
My favorite part about this movie was the emotional roller coaster of Pin-Jui and his daughter’s relationship. Due to the years he spent living in Taiwan, he was very closed off from his family for most of the film, which makes the storyline with his daughter, Angela, heart wrenching to watch. By the end of the movie, they work through some of their differences as Pin-Jui opens up more to her, which makes these scenes stand out.
Overall, this movie isn’t perfect, but I would definitely rewatch it. I recommend “Tigertail” to anyone interested in watching a truly dramatic tear-jerker.
