“Tristes Tropiques” begins with the familiar message that any possible similarities to living and dead people are purely coincidental. But then there is a second text panel: All children involved had the consent of their parents – and particularly disturbing scenes were filmed in such a way that the minors were not present on set when the corresponding shots were taken. Two hours later at the latest, it was clear why those responsible felt such a statement was necessary. After he had already de-romanticized mafia and yakuza cinema with his tough, nihilistic “New World – Between the Fronts”…
… the South Korean director Hoon-Jung Park ties it up this time Heroic Bloodshed that John Woo once made world famous with Hong Kong classics like “City Wolf – A Better Tomorrow”, “The Killer” and “Hard Boiled”. Aside from the emphatically stylized shootouts, loyalty, honor and friendship were always at the core amid the Gun Fu bloodshed. But once again, “The Witch” mastermind is mercilessly doing away with such outdated values – even if his deaf and mute protagonist initially suggests the exact opposite.
Master (Kim Myung-min) trains young Roo to become the perfect killing machine in the Thai jungle.
The plot – as we are used to from Hoon-Jung Park – with all its factions and time levels once again borders on the over-constructed: The nameless Master (Kim Myung-min) was once a legendary mercenary in a brutal civil war. He slaughtered men, women and children with his unit without any consideration until he suddenly decided to stop – and executed his own team without warning with headshots and machete blows.
Instead, he bred his own army of contract murderers in the Thai jungle using bought or kidnapped children – and led them to the top of the world under the cryptic name “Tristes Tropiques”. Meanwhile, his killers like Roo (Lee Sin-young), who was born deaf and mute, or Jojo (Park Yu-rim), who always drags her old teddy with her, have grown up. When Feng (Chen Yi-wen), the leader’s right-hand man, delivers the message that the master has been murdered, a bitter war breaks out between his enemies, his employers and his students…
The Forrest Gump of professional killers
At the beginning, Roo just took some time off to train as a young barista in a small coffee shop instead. His brothers and sisters all know that all they have to do to make him happy is give him a Vetropack fruit juice – and in fact, that always immediately puts a particularly big smile on his face. Not only was he born deaf and dumb, but he is also “slower” than everyone else – and yet he carries out his orders with absolute precision. Roo is basically the Forrest Gump of professional killers – and therefore the perfect person to like. The same applies to Jojo, who we learn in flashbacks that she was sold to pedophile clients by her own mother – until the Master executed one of them with two shots in the head.
But such humanizing moments are usually just red herrings in Hoon-Jung Park’s nihilistic cinema. Although “Tristes Tropiques” is named after the classic ethnological book “Sad Tropics” by Claude Lévi-Strauss, the film hardly takes place in the jungle – the children’s education is even left out completely. Instead, the idea of the isolated, unforgiving jungle is transferred to the Thai concrete deserts: honor and loyalty are just as outdated as the operetta-like shootouts from John Woo’s “The Killer” & Co. In “Tristes Tropiques” there is absolutely nothing beautiful about the comparably brilliantly staged action anymore – one headshot follows the next, and brotherhood has obviously never been more than a tropical illusion.
Conclusion: John Woo’s romanticized heroic bloodshed cinema thought through logically! Once the pigeons have flown away, all that is left is brutal nihilism…
We saw “Tristes Tropiques” at the Fantasy Filmfest 2026, where it celebrated its German premiere.