A Fistful of Inventiveness

Here's an unlikely recipe for a movie: take a 1960s western in the style of Sergio Leone, add the slo-mo bullet play of Sam Peckinpah and dollops of lyrical romance from 1950s Universal weepies, and then cast Thailand's Elizabeth Taylor as the ingenue. Boil thoroughly in a Bangkok hothouse and you've got Thai director Wisit Sasanatieng's Tears of the Black Tiger, a rare, lyrical and funny pad thai western.

Tears tells the tale of a doomed love between an outlaw with the heart of a teddy bear, the Black Tiger (Chartchai Ngamsam), and a rich girl (Stella...