Movie Review: The Paper Tigers

Time for a movie review! It's been a long while.

I headed to my Dad's for the May long weekend and while searching for a film for us to watch, we came across this. I was the only one profoundly interested in watching, so thanks to my dad and his partner for humoring me. I'll give you my one sentence review:

I absolutely loved it.

This film is very serious...ly funny. The premise is, as for the best comedies, quite serious. Three estranged disciples of a Kung Fu master learn that their Sifu has died. Heart failure, apparently. Except it wasn't. It was murder. And these three, no longer practicing Kung Fu, no longer friends, and not in the best shape of their lives, must band together to discover what happened to the man who trained them as young men, and avenge him.

There are a lot of things that really impressed me. The fight choreography was excellent; one of the most accurate examples of fighting with Kung Fu I've seen, even if some of the fights were closer to tricking than actual fighting. One of the things that stuck out to me was the mention of the sound a good strike makes. You can hear the difference when someone hits or kicks a heavy bag (or kicking shield) with good form and good power versus when it form is poor or the strike done without intent. There is a genuine difference. I mention the sound when I'm teaching my students. That was mentioned, and became important, in the movie. That really impressed me. Whoever wrote that in knew their stuff.

The politics of Kung Fu (of which there is a surprising amount) also hit true. I try not to pay too much attention to it in my own training, but it is there. The three tigers trying to navigate it, and hilariously failing at it, was pretty damned funny.

There is the usual trope of personal growth that comes with these stories. That wasn't remarkable, but it was heartfelt. And of course, it has a happy ending. And I quite enjoyed it.

What made me laugh the hardest, however, was the character of Carter. Every Kung Fu school has a Carter... or at least every Kung Fu practitioner knows a Carter. I won't say any more about his character, but he had me dying of laughter in a way, I'm sure, confused my parental unit. Folks in the scene will recognise him and probably also find it very funny.

As this is a Kung Fu movie, there are some tropes that don't quite ring true, but I am so glad that the fighting is much more grounded that you usually see in Kung Fu films. The comedy is often subtle, but golden, and the story itself is typical, but well done all the same.

I'm trying to be spoiler-free about this review. Hopefully I've succeeded.

You won't have to know Kung Fu, even tangentially, to enjoy this movie, but it certainly makes it so much better if you do. I highly recommend this one. It was great. This is one to add to my 'own in physical' list.