"The Paper Tigers": review

[WARNING: spoilers.]

I watched a quirky little martial-arts dramedy last night: "The Paper Tigers," which appeared as a recommendation on Netflix. The Wikipedia entry for the movie showed surprisingly favorable reviews, so I shrugged and sat down to watch it. Overall, I was entertained. The movie came out in 2020 and was directed by Bao Tran (a.k.a. Tran Quoc Bao). It stars a bunch of people I've never heard of and one person I have heard of: Alain Uy, Ron Yuan, and Mykel Shannon Jenkins play the adult protags, but in the flashback scenes to the guys' younger years, we see Yoshi Sudarso, Peter Adrian Sudarso, and Gui DaSilva-Greene. DaSilva-Greene is the one guy I know because he's a frequent guest on Corridor Crew videos, where he talks about the ins and outs of stunt work. Actually, there is one more familiar name: Yuji Okumoto, most famous for being the villain Chozen in "The Karate Kid: Part II," and currently guest-starring in "Cobra Kai" as a rehabilitated Chozen. Okumoto is a producer on "The Paper Tigers," and he has a bit part as well, which includes a sly "Karate Kid" joke.

The basic story is that a trio of boys were privately taught kung fu by a first-generation Chinese master, Sifu Cheung, back in the 80s, but as the movie begins, we see an old man in the present time fighting a mysterious opponent in a dark alley. The old man is obviously on his last legs, having received some sort of incapacitating blow. He suffers a heart attack and dies, and we find out later that this was Sifu Cheung. His three students, Danny (Uy), Hing (Yuan), and Jim (Jenkins), went undefeated as kids and teens, and they were known as the Three Tigers of Sifu Cheung. 

By the time Sifu dies, the boys have all grown up and gone their separate ways, but with bad blood between them because of an incident years earlier: they were supposed to go compete in a professional tournament in Japan, but at the last minute, Danny ducked out and ghosted his friends. Danny, who was supposed to be the inheritor of Sifu Cheung's school, gave up kung fu, got married, had a son, and got divorced. He's not a very good father, either, as he's always caught up with work. Hing, who now has a bum knee, became an expert in Chinese herbal medicine (which can't help his knee). Jim, meanwhile, started up his own martial-arts school, but he focuses on Brazilian jiujitsu instead of kung fu. The three learn of Sifu's death and slowly come to the conclusion that their teacher had been murdered by someone who knew the "poison fingers" technique, a sort of death touch. They eventually discover a "kung-fu assassin" (Ken Quitugua), a formidably strong and fast fighter who does wet work for the Triads. The problem is that the Three Tigers—except maybe for Jim—are now all middle-aged and washed up. This leads to hilarious problems as they try to solve the mystery of Sifu's murder while also trying to rediscover their rusty kung-fu skills.

The movie explores several themes, including whether fighting is ever the solution, what the true role of kung fu in one's life is, the value of integrity (basically: saying what you do and doing what you say), what it means to be Americanized Chinese, and also the reverse: what it means to be a white man who loves Chinese culture so much as to dress in traditional Chinese clothing, learn about many aspects of Chinese culture (including all the important proverbs), learn the language, and study-study-study kung fu. While the script sometimes puts these themes right in your face, the film somehow never feels pushy about morality. We see, for example, that Danny remembers the values of kung fu, including the idea that your word is your bond, yet he constantly lies to his ex-wife Caryn (Jae Suh Park) and son Ed (Josiah Lagonoy), making promises he knows he can't keep.

At the same time, the movie is genuinely funny. There's accidental farting (including during a fight), plenty of rude ethnic humor (Jim, who is black, gets a lot of abuse), not to mention linguistic humor every time a Sinophilic Westerner and old rival named Carter (Matthew Page*) tries to speak Chinese: the Chinese protagonists always look at each other and ask, "What'd he say?" (At first, it was hard to tell whether this was because the protagonists had forgotten how to speak Chinese, but by the end of the film, we know it's because Carter, who is white but a Chinese weeaboo, speaks Chinese pretty poorly, though he gets points for trying.) We've also got fat jokes and baldness jokes, both thanks to Hing, who lost all his hair and has gotten fat since his bad knee keeps him from moving around. (Actor Ron Yuan apparently had to gain 68 pounds for his role as a kung-fu fatty.)

Another thing I like about the movie is the choice, by the director, not to make this like your typical kung-fu film with exaggerated impact noises, overly stylized combat, and impossible acrobatics. Fights occur at normal speed and with a very normal sound design. The fight choreography is also fairly sedate compared to that found in typical Hong Kong action films; the effect is less dramatic but much more realistic. The movie also emphasizes a sense of honor in formal combat (beimo); even the nasty assassin, when challenged, follows the stipulated rules. This non-magical approach to martial arts and to Chinese culture was refreshing. The movie is also realistic about the limits of Chinese herbal medicine.

While the film does suffer some pacing issues (some sections of the story are a little too draggy), the script tends to be smart, giving us witty, naturalistic dialogue without a bunch of stilted fortune-cookie proverbs. I enjoyed the lack of artful pretentiousness; the plot simply unrolls in a relaxed way.

Danny, our main protag, starts off as a not-very-likable dad who has gone from being a kung-fu champion to becoming a weasel who hides behind pacifism as an excuse for his inability to do anything proactive. As the story progresses, though, we see Danny begin to remember his old kung-fu skills, and while there's no "Rocky"-style training montage that ends with a newly minted Danny who's ready to take on anybody, we nevertheless end up with a Danny who has recovered his old fighter's mindset, which includes a "flow" state he used to be able to sink into while fighting. None of this comes off as overly magical, nor is it anything like the cheap, implausible tricks that Daniel-san uses to defeat opponents in the "Karate Kid" movies and the "Cobra Kai" series. The only hocus-pocus element in this story is the "poison fingers," but that's there because it's an important part of the plot.

In terms of flaws: Jim felt a bit underused, a fact that was accentuated by how, of the Three Tigers, he was the one who had truly kept in shape over the years. And even though the movie's run time is under two hours, I felt that a few minutes could have been trimmed off here and there just to tighten up the story a bit. The end of the film also includes some major plot holes, which I can't talk about without spoiling things, so you've been warned: when Danny finally fights the assassin on a rooftop, he ends up defeating the guy (possibly by breaking his back) but doesn't kill him. While this in itself is a noble gesture, what's to stop the assassin from calling the police on the guy who crippled him? I also didn't understand why the assassin would adhere to any sort of code of honor given the nature of his work: the assassin kills people via his "poison fingers," which means he slaps them in a special way, and they die of a heart attack a few minutes later with no one the wiser as to why. What would such a sneaky killer know about real honor?

Those problems aside, I enjoyed "The Paper Tigers" much more than I thought I would. The movie's exploration of culture, family, friendship/brotherhood, integrity, and honor through the lens of kung fu is both touching and often funny. The film has a good heart, and in some ways, it does unexpected things with a hackneyed genre. Hats off to the principal actors as well as to director Bao Tran, himself a martial artist. I read that Tran wanted to make a film that represented minorities without doing the usual whitewashed Chinatown story. While I'd normally say that making race a top item on your agenda is a bad idea, Tran showed us a good, kick-ass story, and to me, that's the most important thing. Despite not being Chinese or black, I could relate to the bond that held these three friends together, and thanks to the clever scriptwriting, I could care about what was happening to our heroes. The result of Tran's efforts was a movie that engaged me, and I thoroughly enjoyed myself.

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*Matthew Page is an actual martial artist who plays Master Ken, a hilarious parody of martial-arts masters, on YouTube. In "the Paper Tigers," he plays Carter without Master Ken's trademark mustache. I recall staring hard at Page when I saw him, thinking he looked familiar, and that his mannerisms reminded me strongly of Master Ken's. Sure enough—he is Master Ken, which makes him perfect for his role as Carter the Sino-weeaboo.