The Paper Tigers (2020)

The Paper Tigers (2020)

 7/10

Starring

Alain Uy

Ron Yuan

Mykel Shannon Jenkins

 

Directed by Bao Tran

 

This movie comes across first as one of those movies with a B-movie setting, hoping to do magnificent things, but never meeting up. What this movie is, is an action drama (martial art film) with so much spice and intent, it delivers the need action and drama heavily to have you thoroughly invested in the characters and story. The action in the movie is not all intense but distributed over its run to show us how three men try to get back past glory and rekindle the focus they once had on being the best.

You can guess the general plot of such action movies as this which has to do with revenge, as most martial arts movies do. What I did enjoy about this, was how much the subplot of the three trying to get back in shape and be just as good as before, took prominence for more than 70% of the movie. The movie saves us the whole breaking point, Rocky running up the stairs to get fit scenes. None of that ever happened, these men remained unfit (martial art wise and two of them health wise), from start to finish.

The movie starts with us meeting the three who trained as disciples under a kung-fu master. We see them mature and become the best they could. In the present (decades after), all three have left that path. We see their Sifu get killed and it was that murder that brought Hing to come looking for Danny. Hing is suffering from a broken leg, which has left him impaired in his walking and he has gained a considerable amount of weight. He got this injury from falling off a scaffold where he used to work. Danny was struggling at his own end, to keep his life in order and be the best dad he could be. The last one Jim seems to be the only one doing well, as he kept fit and was a kickboxing trainer.

The three get wind from another martial artist in another dojo that their master was probably killed, he gave them leads. One turned out to be a dead end and the other led to a man who had replaced all three. When the three left with Danny set to be the new leader of the clan, their master had trained a replacement. It was this disciple that knows the truth about what happened to their master. I can safely say that the fight in the end, is worth seeing for the comedy and the choreography.

The movie is a nice watch.