Alan Yang had only been to Taiwan once in 25 years, traveling at age 7 to his grandfather's funeral. The subsequent quarter century was spent fairly assimilated into "all-American" culture: playing sports in his hometown of Riverside, California, writing for The Harvard Lampoon, getting staffed on Parks and Recreation.
Young Yang probably couldn't have imagined that for his feature directorial debut, he'd be location scouting rice fields in his parents' native country, taking the train back to Taipei at the end of long shoot days to crack a few Taiwan Beers with his crew.
Tigertail, which premieres on Netflix today, is a tribute to his family's story — specifically that of his father, who was raised in Taiwan by a single mother working in a.