This inability to communicate quickly reveals itself to be the film’s core focus. Netflixĭeftly deployed by Yang, the voiceovers from Pin-Jiu become an important device - Pin-Jiu recalls memories and expresses intense emotions in his narration, but he rarely says anything aloud in conversations with his family. The story is narrated from the vantage point of Pin-Jiu (Tzi Ma) in his middle age, though the first scenes, with the fields of Taiwan glinting in the sun and the atmosphere suffused with lyrical loneliness, are an immersive view of his youth. Moving back and forth in time and place, Tigertail weaves a complicated tale of Taiwanese immigration and the pain of the past. Much of the plot is fictionalized, but Yang’s personal connection is palpable everything has the feeling of a story passed down in fragments - a past reconstructed from pieces. The narrative draws loosely on Yang’s own family history: like Tigertail’s protagonist Pin-Jiu, Yang’s father grew up in rural Taiwan and worked in a factory before eventually emigrating to the United States.
The film is written, produced, and directed by Alan Yang, who won an Emmy for his exquisitely comedic and heartfelt writing about the Asian-American experience on Master of None, which he also co-created. How wide is the distance between generations? Between past and present? Between the lives of parents and their children? In the stories we tell about our families and histories, how much is left unsaid? Spanning decades and continents in a couple’s journey from Taiwan to the United States, Tigertail, a poignant family drama debuting on Netflix on April 10, traverses a vast territory of things left unspoken.