Netflix film Tigertail, writer and director Alan Yang’s ‘coming to America’ story starring Tzi Ma, is loosely based on his own father’s journey
- Emmy Award winner Alan Yang’s story is based on his father’s experience of leaving Taiwan for the US
- It’s a tale of broken dreams, lost love, and a coming together of father and daughter
A rundown flat, a loveless marriage and a life far different from that seen in the movies. It’s an American dream capable of turning a young, free-spirited Taiwanese factory worker into a shell of himself, and it’s the core story of Alan Yang’s debut feature Tigertail, which is now streaming on Netflix.
“I think it’s trying to take a realistic look, and not trying to necessarily always paint [it] as a fairy tale, where you come to America and all your problems are solved and everything is OK,” says the co-producer of US comedy-drama Master of None .
Loosely based on the life of Yang’s father, Tigertail revolves around Pin Jui, who was raised by his grandparents on a farm while his widowed mother worked in a factory. “In fact, the real-life situation was even harder; he had two brothers and everyone in the village told his mother to give him up for adoption,” says 36-year-old Yang.
Taiwanese heartthrob Lee Hong-chi (Cities of Last Things) plays the young Pin Jui, a suave young man who falls in love with his childhood friend. The older, disillusioned Pin Jui is portrayed by Tzi Ma (Mulan).
“He was kind of an admirer of American culture,” Ma says. “He always wanted to go there, but how he got there was not what he had in mind.”
The 57-year-old Hong Kong-born American actor (who has become Hollywood’s go-to Asian dad in recent years) says once Pin Jui is in the US, he tries to be loving to the woman he was arranged to marry in America, but fails in the end. Ma says: “It’s a marriage he really didn’t want to be a part of, and he becomes kind of a lost soul – the love of his life was in Taiwan.”
Recalling a trip he and his father took to Taiwan, Yang was surprised how happy his father was, because he was able to speak Taiwanese again, see old friends and revisit places he had been when he was growing up.
“That really struck me as one of the sacrifices you make when you move to another country,” he says.
Ma says, “you’re looking at two lives; the life he had in Taiwan and the life he had in America. [In Taiwan] that’s where all the good times were; the dancing, the fun, the adventures that they went through. It was so unlike his experience in America, which was a struggle.”
Yang says: “You know I think it’ll always be natural to feel as if you’re missing a part of yourself and a part of you would feel affection for the place you came from, the place you left behind.”
I think it’s trying to take a realistic look, and not trying to necessarily always paint [it] as a fairy tale, where you come to America and all your problems are solved and everything is OK
“The story is really about Pin Jui’s journey, which ultimately merges with his daughter’s journey.”
With Angela, an accomplished lawyer, the apple hasn’t fallen far from the tree. It’s much like “history repeating itself”, says Ma.
“It’s also about who home represents and what your relationships are, aside from geography and sights and smells,” says Yang. “It’s about who you love, who you miss and who you care about.”
The script for Tigertail began as a file on Yang’s computer titled “Family Movie”. He spent five years creating his debut feature film, a self-proclaimed “love letter” to his family. During that time, he received a Primetime Emmy Award for outstanding writing for a comedy series for his work on Master of None in 2016.
Yang says the climate in the American film industry is a little different from when he started.
Finding Asian-American actors to fill lead roles has never been an issue, says Ma. “The talent has always been there; they’ve always been talented.”
Yang says: “In a time where a lot of people are isolated, the movie is about connection.” He couldn’t watch the preview with his family due to social isolation measures, but sent his father the link to watch the preview, and anxiously texted him after the film finished.
“[My father] wrote back a really long text and said he was amazed at how much I remembered, and how much detail I put into it, how beautiful it was and how it made him miss home, how beautiful the shot of him running in the rice fields was, and how much the little boy looked like him.”
Yang’s mother, who became a teacher after divorcing his father, also enjoyed the film.
“I was truly happy because that’s truly the review that matters most to me,” Yang said. “There can be happy endings, and my favourite kinds are bittersweet, which is what I think happens in the movie.”
