Miramax had a 'Tiger' by the tail then let it dangle; now it's Magnolia to the rescue (LAT)

By Nancy Vialatte

Today�s Los Angeles Times has a look at the handling of Wisit Sasanatieng�s �Tears of the Black Tiger� and its trajectory from �festival star to battle-scarred survivor� following its Cannes 2001 pick up by Miramax.

The film will be released in the US this weekend by Magnolia nearly seven years after its completion and is �one of the most notable victims of the old, overspending Miramax, which in the Weinstein era was notorious for acquiring armloads of festival titles and sometimes allowing them to molder in the vaults indefinitely.�

"Tears of the Black Tiger" was one of the first films to spark a renaissance in Thai cinema and caused a feeding frenzy at Cannes in 2001 where it was handled by Fortissimo.

Eamonn Bowles, president of Magnolia Pictures, which is now releasing the film, remembers seeing "Tears" at its first packed Cannes screening. "The saturated color scheme and the incredibly arch nature of the characters and plot were counterbalanced by a seeming earnestness that just had no precedent for me," he said.

When the then Weinstein-run Miramax picked up the film, the Thai film industry jumped for joy. �Everybody was excited," Sasanatieng told the LAT, "It was the first time a Thai film had been sold to a big U.S. company."

But "Tears� was never released.

The first rumblings of trouble came when Miramax decided to re-cut the film within months of the Cannes purchase. Sasanatieng said he and his producers had been warned of the Weinsteins' penchant for meddling. But, he said, "We were too innocent. We believed that they would respect our work. They told us again and again that everybody at Miramax loved the film so much."

Offering Miramax a shorter edit proved unsuccessful. "They didn't allow me to re-cut it at all," Sasanatieng said. "They did it by themselves and then sent me the tape. And they changed the ending from tragic to happy. They said that in the time after 9/11, nobody would like to see something sad."

Another attempt to cut the film by Sasanatieng, which was shorter than Miramax�s but which preserved his ending, was also rejected. The director then attempted to get out of the deal but found he had no recourse, says the LAT.

It was the "horrible version," as he put it, that played at Sundance in 2002. But Miramax, having butchered the film, apparently lost interest and never released it. This reckless manhandling was not atypical for a company with such profligate buying habits.

"Miramax had an insatiable appetite for anything that appealed to them," Magnolia's Bowles said. "Part of the strategy was probably to keep films with potential upsides away from the competition. There's also the factor of competitive juices coming into play. Being able to quickly snag a film that had a lot of heat on it was, I'm sure, a big factor in its acquisition. They ended up acquiring more films than could be sensibly released."

Sasanatieng, who has completed two more films since and is in preproduction on his fourth, is relieved to leave the whole episode behind. "It's strange to have people only now seeing and talking about my first film, but it also makes me happy," he said. "It's like a rebirth."