NYAFF 2026 Review: 4 Tigers

The main joy I take in the New York Asian Film Festival each year is sampling films from as many different countries as possible. While I primarily have an interest in Hong Kong cinema with a somewhat decent understanding of Japanese films, I’m not exactly familiar with movies from the Philippines, Vietnam, Thailand, etc. I’ve used the show as a means of expanding my understanding of Asian cinema beyond what is popular and into the more obscure. Maybe that results in me not fully understanding some movies, but I’d rather have the exposure and start the learning process rather than live in ignorance.

That’s why I chose 4 Tigers as one of the films to check out this year. Admittedly, I didn’t do too much research as I simply saw “post-WWII” on the NYAFF website and figured this would be something of a historical drama. Instead, it’s a batshit nutso revisionist Western that balances so many different tones and styles that my head was spinning by the end.

Suffice it to say, I wasn’t the biggest fan, but I respect the hell out of this type of maximalist filmmaking.

4 Tigers
Director: Kongkiat Komesiri
Release Date: October 23, 2025 (Thailand), July 14, 2026 (NYAFF)
Country: Thailand

4 Tigers is something of an origin story for its titular squad of characters. Framed as a prequel to the successful Khun Pan films, the movie details the rise of a group of notorious bandits who eventually do battle against Lt. Khun Pan across his own trilogy of movies. It’s this whole thing that would have maybe made 4 Tigers make more sense, but is ultimately not too important in the grand scheme.

As the NYAFF website correctly pointed out, 4 Tigers starts in the 1950s in a post-WWII Thailand. Bandits have become a rampant problem for the people, but it’s basically the only way to make a living after how economically ravaged the country became following the conflict. In an effort to turn the tides of society, femme fatale Rosarin (Matchanat Suwannamas) recruits four individuals to kill Field Marshal Lert (Phonlawat Manuprasert). They are; Fai (Sukollawat Kanaros), a bandit with shaman-like powers; Mahesuan (Mario Maurer), a man with a powerful amulet that can repel bullets; Bai (Arak Amornsupasiri), a gunslinger who can bend bullets; and Dum (Phakin Khamwilaisak), a strongman like brawler who gets his brute force do the talking.

Running just a bit under two and a half hours, 4 Tigers is a substantial film with a lot of ground to cover. There is a pretty exciting fight early on between Bai and one of his targets that echoes bits of Kensuke Sonomura’s action choreography, but a rather large portion of the first act is set on establishing the backstories for each of the Tigers and what their motivations are for assisting Rosarin. In all honesty, I would consider her the main character, but that’s neither here nor there.

The shifting tones is what helps separate 4 Tigers from other movies of its type. It initially starts with a pretty serious atmosphere before Bai recruits a group of mariachis to sing a song about how his magical tonic will give you a raging hardon. The plan is to distract guards so he can eliminate his target, but it makes one thing clear: this isn’t some stuffy historical picture. Like classic Hong Kong cinema, 4 Tigers flips on a dime from bizarre comedy to brutal violence and then back to drama to get its point across. I guess it reflects the unpredictability of life, but it starts to grate because of the sheer length of the film.

That’s mostly what I remember about the film, sadly. The action can look a bit wonky, but there simply isn’t enough of it peppered throughout to help the movie’s pacing. At times, the exposition becomes so agonizing that I kept glancing over to my clock to figure out how long was left. There is an attempt at a love triangle between Rosarin, Bai, and Dum, but there simply isn’t enough depth to anyone to make that work. Despite how long-winded things get, 4 Tigers has about as shallow as a puddle when it comes to narrative.

In a lot of ways, the film reminded me of Pattaya Heat, a Thai action film I reviewed for NYAFF 2024. While I’m still unfamiliar with the broader Thai film industry, I get the feeling that its action films are attempting pastiches of Hollywood films in an effort to establish itself as a major global player. The aforementioned Pattaya Heat was a riff on Guy Ritchie movies, and 4 Tigers is seemingly a take on Sergio Leone westerns, just mixed with a lot of comedy antics.

Like most westerners, my first exposure to Thai cinema came from Ong-Bak in 2003. A stunning recreation of peak Jackie Chan movies, it set the bar pretty damn high for what to expect from Thailand. While the industry has only continued to grow in the two decades since then, there hasn’t ever been another crossover hit like what Tony Jaa managed to achieve. That’s possibly why the films we are seeing ported over are attempting to appeal to Western standards rather than deliver something distinctly Thai.

I can only speculate on that, but I can tell you that 4 Tigers seems stuck in that type of middle ground. You wouldn’t confuse this for a Hollywood action film, but it never really feels like something only Thailand could create. Some of that is because of the costume design, which is purposely invoking Wild West style, and some of it is due to action design, which is cribbing a lot from recent Japanese cinema.

Again, none of that makes 4 Tigers bad. I wouldn’t hesitate to say its fleetingly enjoyable, even. Around the 80-minute mark, there is this bonkers ass fight in the middle of a mansion where the titular Tigers finally team up together, and it plays out like a massive John Wick brawl. There’s a lot of slow motion, some wonky CG, and occasional editing flubs, but the attempt at mimicking a single-take is impressive. I appreciate that all the Tigers have a distinct style, meaning their segments in the battle aren’t just repeats of one another. Maybe it’s kind of bizarre to see a bullet flying around the screen like you’re watching an anime, but I can tolerate wackiness when the tone of the film is so broad.

My biggest issue is that after this battle, it feels like the film should be over, yet there is another hour to get through. With the original goal being to kill the Field Marshal, the plot also ends with a dull thud as some outrageous landmine sequence takes so long to conclude that the film then needs to contrive some offscreen reason for why the Marshal died anyway. There’s no climactic showdown or final boss fight or anything. The movie just ends with the team now happily working together.

I wish I had more to say, but 4 Tigers is a prime example of populist entertainment at its core. Maybe I don’t go for that so much, but I’m not making the claim to dismiss Komesiri’s work. He knows what his audience likes, and considering how successful 4 Tigers was in Thailand (a sequel is already being planned), he was right to go in this direction. There are echoes of Wong Jing here, with a disregard for traditional filmmaking attributes in an effort to appease the mass market. Jing wound up slowly becoming one of the most influential filmmakers of his generation, though, so who am I to truly judge?

If that sounds good to you, I would encourage you to check out 4 Tigers. At the very least, there are three other films in the series that will give you even more of what you crave.