As teenagers training in their master’s garage, “the three tigers” were the most ass-kicking martial arts prodigies of their late-’80s local kung-fu scene. The world was at their fingertips until a rift between students and sensei caused the group to disband and become estranged. Now, thirty years later, as they stand in pale comparison to their former selves, they must reunite to solve the murder of their once-beloved teacher, and avenge his death as only the tigers can. The only thing standing in their way is their softened, out-of-shape bodies and three decades of neglectful practice.
As the premise suggests, The Paper Tigers is undeniably a silly film, but that’s the way director Tran Quoc Bao likes it – and quite frankly, so do I. With a cast of likable leads in tow (including wonderfully comedic and action-oriented turns from Alain Uy, Ron Yuan, and Mykel Shannon Jenkins), Tran pays homage to his genre while updating it in a way that is totally relatable for the once-active but now out-of-shape among us. He piles onto the relatability by keeping his story small, succumbing to just the right amount of tropes to keep it familiar, but not enough to entirely bog it down with cliché. It’s a delicate balance that Tran walks with relative ease.
The Paper Tigers may be far from perfect, but these kinds of movies are meant to be fun romps through action sequences and humor, not complex masterpieces of philosophical profundity. And in this regard, it delivers adequately enough. However, as fun and lighthearted as The Paper Tigers is, some scenes are dragged out past their welcome and the kung-fu battles I so desperately crave are a bit too infrequent for my tastes. But even with this in mind, The Paper Tigers is a film that will easily find a warm home with those in on the joke.
James is a writer, record collector, wrestling nerd, and tabletop gamer living with his family in Asheville, North Carolina. He is a member of the Southeastern Film Critics Association, the North Carolina Film Critics Association, and contributes to The Daily Orca, Razorcake Magazine, Mountain Xpress, and Asheville Movies.