Review: 'Paper Tigers'

In the past few years, Hollywood has seen the rise of a plethora of AAPI cast and crew, a wonderful movement towards a more diverse and inclusive film world. Crazy Rich Asians established Asians in the roles of romantic leads, Parasite shocked the world with its elegant narrative and execution, and Mindy Kaling’s new show Never Have I Ever has become an absolute favorite in the realm of TV-watchers across the U.S. That said, there are still movies being released that have a rather backwards understanding of race which manifests in a problematic depiction thereof. Tran Quoc Bao’s The Paper Tigers is one of these movies.

The premise of the film is as follows: three former kung fu champions – Danny (Alain Uy), Hing (Ron Yuan), and Jim (Mykel Shannon Jenkins) – learn that their martial arts teacher, whom they know affectionately as “sifu,” has passed away from a heart attack. Upon attending his funeral, they are informed by their childhood nemesis Carter (Matthew Page) that the cause of sifu’s death may not have been of natural causes like they assumed. Their days of glory have long since passed, yet the three men, once known as “The Three Tigers” of Chinatown, embark on an investigation into sifu’s death. They discover that he was indeed murdered by his own secret disciple, Zhen Fan (Ken Quitugua), and seek vengeance on sifu’s behalf.

It is always a tragedy to see plot get in the way of a film’s artistry, but unfortunately The Paper Tigers falls quite short in its development, to the point where it becomes distracting. Yes, some of the dialogue is witty and fun, and yes, there are a few heart-warming scenes, but for the most part you can’t help but wonder why you should be rooting for Danny at all. Essentially, throughout the film he is an arrogant has-been kung fu protégé who thinks he’s still a gifted martial artist despite not having trained a day in his life for the past fifteen years. This is all in addition to being an unreliable student, friend, and even father. He abandons his teacher, his friends, and kung fu, yet believes himself the inheritor of his sifu’s school – and simply for the sake of making him the hero, the film justifies his belief. Accepting and rejoicing at his victory in the final fight against Zhen Fan requires an almost overwhelming amount of imagination on the part of the viewer.

There is also the matter of his continued feud with Carter as an adult, simultaneously the most bewildering and logical aspect of the film. Notably the only White member of the main cast, Carter is meant to be an entirely ironic character; he takes kung fu far too seriously, spits out random proverbs left and right, and, here’s the shocker, actually considers himself to be Chinese. He is the embodiment of Edward Said’s “orientalism,” and succeeds in being the most insufferable presence on screen by far. However, his racial identity is used as the end-all-be-all to his inherent inferiority to the three Tigers, when in fact they themselves have no legitimate authority over him. He is the only one to continue studying kung fu, and, although he goes a little overboard, is seemingly the only one to practice the formalities that come with the art as well. He is right to chide Danny and Hing for showing up to their sifu’s funeral unprepared and undressed for the occasion, and when he beats all three of the Tigers later in the film, it makes sense. Thus, as a result of his exaggerated characterization, he ends up satirizing the cultural practices associated with kung fu. In short, Carter is used as an objective example of orientalism, but his ironic disposition is undermined by his relative legitimacy to the protagonists.

Moreover, the Tigers themselves orientalize kung fu. Danny corrects his son’s pronunciation of the term “kung fu” as though he has superior linguistic knowledge, but mispronounces “sifu” as “see-foo” throughout the entirety of the film, as does everyone else; Hing somehow has a mystical ability to wake people up from unconsciousness with medicinal kung fu that is never explained; and the word “honor” comes up as a philosophy so often it becomes a little bit nauseating.

In terms of the film’s artistic language, the cinematography and sound design are fine if a little underwhelming. It takes place in Seattle’s Chinatown, showcasing some of the city’s beauty, and features an AAPI majority cast, which is fantastic. Naturally, the film does best in its choreography and fighting sequences, even though most of the fights involve the Tigers flimsily trying to remember and carry out the moves they once knew (and getting beat up as a result). The title sequence and the final fight between Danny and Zhen Fan were compelling and impressive, a testament to Tran Quoc Bao’s training under Corey Yuen. Overall it is an example of a fairly good debut directing job that sadly got extremely subverted by the subpar and even problematic writing and plot development.

We must address the film’s use of homophobic and racial slurs. When Danny’s son confesses that the reason he gets into a fight at school is because a bully called his friend the f-slur, Danny responds, “well that sounds like something they need to settle between themselves as grown children.” He later corrects this statement by telling his son that there are some instances in which fighting is ok, but the word itself is never addressed again. Moreover, when the Tigers face off against three delinquent kids at an empty indoor swimming pool, one of the delinquents calls Jim the n-word. From what I gather, the scene is supposed to be comedic. It’s not. Danny’s immediate reaction is to tell Jim to “walk away,” then Hing tries to convince Danny to fight by saying the three of them are the “Martin Luther Kings of martial arts,” then Jim jumps in with his own racially insensitive term by calling the delinquents “sushi-eating m*****f******,” and it is just one disaster after another. Frankly, the whole scene is appalling and hugely offensive; there is absolutely no justification for using this word in a movie such as this, certainly not for the purpose of comedy. If the film was trying to make a statement on the abhorrence of the term, it failed. Both of these slurs are traumatic to hear, and the film has subjugated its audiences to them for no good reason at all.

It is quite devastating to see a movie such as this come out, for it is in many ways a step backwards from the direction the AAPI community has been making in recent years. One can only hope its release will not create too significant a negative impact on what has otherwise been good progress in diversity within Hollywood.