Tigertail: Netflix
With the recent critical acclaim of Lee Isaac Chung’s intimate portrait of an immigrant family in Minari, you might be wondering where to look next for similar stories. In 2020, Netflix released Tigertail without so much as a ruffle never mind a buzz, which has unfortunately let the film sink into the abyss of the streaming platform. But, I can assure you that it is well worth digging up.
Similarly to Lee Isaac Chung with Minari, writer and director Alan Yang (co-creator alongside Aziz Ansari of Master of None) drew on the experiences of his father to fabricate Tigertail. The film follows the experiences from childhood to present day middle-aged Pin-Jui (his younger self played by Lee Hong-chi and older self played by Tzi Ma) who is raised in Huwei in Taiwan. As a young adult, Pin Jui works in a factory alongside his mother and on weekends he dances at the local bar where he meets and falls in love with Yuan (played by Yo Hsing Fang and Joan Chen). Pin-Jui dreams of moving to America and providing a better life for himself and his mother who works with hazardous machines in a gruelling job. When one day, his boss offers him a ticket to America with the condition of marriage to his daughter, Zhenzhen (Kinjue Li and Fiona Fu), Pin-Jui seizes the opportunity, reluctantly leaving behind his tender relationship with Yuan for a woman he has met once only to find that America doesn’t live up to expectations.
The film is expertly crafted, swinging between the past and the present, between Huwei and New York City. Like Scorsese’s portraits of New York from the 70s, Tigertail paints the city in murky green and red tones that seep into the Pin-Jui and Zhenzhen’s miniscule apartment.
While Pin-Jui is the protagonist of the film, Yang thankfully does not dismiss the experiences and perspectives of the women. While Pin-Jui finds his job at a grocery store mundane and repetitive, the film equally shares Zhenzhen’s grievances with being confined to housework. Moments which focus on Zhenzhen indicate her own isolation as she attempts to settle into a life in a foreign country with a man she barely knows. In one scene, she looks around a laundromat and cannot find another person who looks like her. Eventually, she befriends Peijing (Cindera Che), an older woman who is also from Taiwan who helps her settle into her new life.
In the present day, Pin-Jui struggles to connect with his grown daughter, Angela (Christine Ko) who is working through the end of a long-term relationship. We get a glimpse, although perhaps it is a little scarce, of Angela’s experiences as a first-generation Taiwanese American who faces pressures, particularly placed on her by her now embittered father. The father-daughter relationship is evidently a strained one and the two struggle to muster up a non-confrontational conversation but ultimately, they are connected through more similarities than differences. Through its reflective moments and neat structure, Tigertail is a quiet reflection on identity and intergenerational familial relationships.
Tigertail is available to watch now on Netflix.
Words by Rosie Beattie.