Blue Tiger Reviews

Steeped in film noir atmosphere, BLUE TIGER is a fatalistic revenge drama embroidered with elements of forbidden desire. Shorn of some of its metaphysical nonsense about destiny and simplistic Yin/Yang attractions, this "rub-'em-out" adventure would have been less cluttered and more gripping. In a seedy Los Angeles, a Yakuza clan try capturing a piece of the tour bus industry monopolized by unethical Henry Soames (Dean Hallo). Although a hit on Soames fails, a Yakuza inadvertently murders an innocent bystander, Darin (Henry Mortensen), the young son of Gina Hayes (Virginia Madsen). Remembering a tattoo sported by Darin's masked assassin, Gina saunters into a tattoo parlor run by philosopher Smith (Harry Dean Stanton), who explains the magnetic attraction her own Tiger tattoo would have on a potential soulmate. While the Yakuza clan continues their turf war against Soames by killing his best friend Luis (Sal Lopez), warrior-in-training Gina becomes fluent enough in Japanese to penetrate their crimeworld. In a game of seduction, she lures Yakuza Gan (Ryo Ishibashi) into revealing himself as her son's murderer, but the veteran hit man turns the tables and soon has her at his mercy; it is only the timely interferences of Gan's sensitive brother, Seiji (Toru Nakamura) that saves her temporarily. Realizing that Gina is not a Soames operative but the dead boy's mom, the Yakuza elders direct conflicted Seiji to murder the woman for whom he's developed a passionate longing. While the police chastise Gina for her Mata Hari routine, Seiji barely escapes death in an explosion at the Yakuza home base ordered by Soames. While making love to the sole surviving Yakuza, Gina discovers in horror that tattooed Seiji, not his brother Gan, is her son's killer. After apprehension by and escape from the police, a still-handcuffed Seiji massacres everyone at the Soames Bus Company, then awaits his fate at the hands of Gina. No longer vacillating, instrument-of-justice Gina blasts her beloved right through his regretful heart. Superficially exciting, BLUE TIGER makes Gina's maternal commando mission comprehensible if not dramatically engaging. While this neo-noir thriller captures the smoky midnight blue ambiance of crime and passion among the LA mob set, it founders in over-emphasizing the yin and yang tattoo legend that is applied to the central figures' romance. Intended to dress up a skimpy plot, the Harry Dean Stanton segments about red and blue tiger destinies interrupt the storyline more than they illustrate it. What is most striking, however, is this mongrel movie's depiction of the cesspool through which the grimly-determined mother wanders--since neither Soames nor the Yakuza clan have any redeeming qualities, Gina's mission takes on an almost mystical purity. This aside, BLUE TIGER serves up expertly-staged lethal liquidations all in the name of mother love, making a tasty chop suey out of a mix of soap opera melodrama and traditional action fare. (Graphic violence, extreme profanity, nudity, sexual situations.)