Author Laurence Yep has written many books over his career, focusing on the area of children’s literature, even having won the Newbery twice, once in 1976 and again in 1994. Yep’s work is a mixture of historical fiction like the Golden Mountain Chronicles which explore the Chinese immigrant experience from 1849 China to 1995 America, nonfiction, and fantasy works. One such fantasy work is the Tiger’s Apprentice trilogy, beginning with The Tiger’s Apprentice, published in 2003. After several starts and stops, Yep sees the novel adapted into animated form as a Paramount+ exclusive release, hitting the streamer ahead of the Chinese Lunar New Year. Directed by Raman Hui (Monster Hunt 2), adapted for the screen by David Magee (The Little Mermaid (2023)) and Christopher L. Yost (Thor: Ragnarok; Secret Headquarters), and featuring a voice cast of talented actors (new and established), The Tiger’s Apprentice is an action/adventure fantasy coming-of-age film anchored in Chinese culture and lore designed for a specific audience even as its structure appeals to a much wider one. Strangely, the main issue with this “part one” is how quickly it rushes through its major points, preventing many aspects from being as fleshed out and impactful as intended.
L-R: Kheng Hua Tan as Mrs. Lee and Brandon Soo Hoo as Tom in THE TIGER’S APPRENTICE, streaming on Paramount+, 2024. Photo Credit: Paramount Pictures/Paramount+.
In San Francisco, young Tom Lee (Brandon Soo Hoo) lives with his eccentric grandmother, Mrs. Lee (Kheng Hua Tan), generally happy, even if socially bothered by unconventional style and persistent use of Chinese charms around their home. After an altercation between Tom and a bully results in an odd expression of physical force, the time has arrived for Tom to discover the truth of who he is. However, before he can learn the truth, danger arrives in the form of the magician Loo (Michelle Yeoh) who demands something that Mrs. Lee protects and Tom is whisked away by a strange man, Hu (Henry Golding), whom his grandmother knows and trusts. This morning, Tom’s biggest problem was whether the new girl at school, Räv (Leah), thought he was cool enough to hang with and now, the fate of the world lies on his shoulders. Can he learn to harness that which lies within him to stop Loo or will all that his ancestors have sought to protect fall?
Having not read any portion of Yep’s source material, what follows will not compare or contrast one to the other.
Having said that, there’s a strangeness within Apprentice that anyone who hasn’t read the series will immediately notice: it’s hurry. It wants to both be an entry story for our budding hero Tom who must learn that the stories his grandmother taught him, cautioned him with, raised him to understand as legends and myths amid her (to him) eccentricity, are real *and* an adventure story in which he is thrust unprepared to battle against a formidable foe. Using visual shorthand common in storytelling, we quickly come to understand who are the bad guys (donning black colors against stark white skin and sending out green/black creatures to do their bidding) and who are the good guys (modeled after the Chinese zodiac and with their own individual vibrant colors). We’re meant to ooo and aaah, but it’s all so rushed that it barely registers with meaning beyond how Tom responds to it. Another example that’s less specific to the overall narrative while being emblematic of the issues inherent within its race to battle is the character of Räv. The film is so hurried that Räv doesn’t appear to have a real purpose in the film within the scope of its opening and close. She’s there to be a potential love interest (sure, they’re in high school, but Mrs. Lee quickly jokes to her grandson that his parents met as teens) and possibly confidant, yet, through the course of the narrative, the inclusion is almost entirely pointless. From research, the character is more closely woven into the story, so it makes sense from an adaptation standpoint to include her, especially where sequels would make the character potentially more important, however, from a bookend perspective, Räv is distractingly present.
L-R: Sherry Cola as Naomi, Sandra Oh as Mistral, Bowen Yang as Sidney, Henry Golding as Hu, and Brandon Soo Hoo as Tom in THE TIGER’S APPRENTICE, streaming on Paramount+, 2024. Photo Credit: Paramount Pictures/Paramount+.
On the one hand, those who’ve either grown up with Chinese culture or consumed a great deal of Chinese stories (books, films, etc.) will recognize much of what’s short-handed throughout Apprentice. They’ll understand, or at the very least accept, who the Zodiac are and how they function within this context. Frankly, anyone who’s enjoyed any kind of transportive story (the recently re-adapted Percy Jackson comes to mind) will quickly get what the screenwriters are going for; however, on the other hand, the hurry to have some kind of action set piece comes at the cost of (a) character investment and (b) a proper understanding of the rules and operations of this magical co-existing realm. The film runs roughly 84 minutes and 10 of those minutes are credits and, while there’s something to be said for brevity, by reducing the time spent, one also loses the opportunity to grow attached to the world and characters enough to revisit it. Considering that there’s some rich lore being tapped to construct the magical portion of Apprentice, this is not the area one should cut corners.
What’s surprisingly strong is the animation itself. While the human characters and surrounding physical structures share many traits in common with the visual style of films released by Light Chase Animation Studios (White Snake (2019); New Gods: Yang Jian (2022)), the characterization of the Zodiac in their animal form and the spiritual plane are shifted enough to give one the impression of physical difference from Tom’s mortal realm. For the animals, their designs apply a visual motif so that they look just slightly hand-drawn, helping them to standout against the 3D animation elsewhere. When on screen, this difference intelligently short-hands how these are beings not of our world. For the spiritual realm, Paramount Animation transitions to more of a watercolor look, evoking the gongbi style of Chinese watercolor, anchoring this film even further in its source material while being quite lovely and evocative in its execution. The visuals are really where Apprentice finds its strength, but, on the whole, even an animated film needs to be more than how it uses visuals to tell its story.
L-R: Brandon Soo Hoo as Tom and Michelle Yeoh as Loo in THE TIGER’S APPRENTICE, streaming on Paramount+, 2024. Photo Credit: Paramount Pictures/Paramount+.
Generally speaking, The Tiger’s Apprentice is fine. It entertains, the voice cast is a great deal of fun to listen to, and there’s an opportunity to raise curiosity within the audience who didn’t grow up with these stories to investigate further. But that’s about it. Plenty of dazzle and not enough razzle to raise the slightest curiosity for the next entry in the story, which is a bummer because this is a great opportunity to raise the profile on these types of stories away from adaptations like the Kung Fu Panda series which are made as loving homages, but often create their own missteps in the process of trying to sound authentic (Master Shifu (Dustin Hoffman) is just Master Master and that will always bother me). The Tiger’s Apprentice is made from within the community, for the community, and placed on a stage that certainly deserves more than is offered. Calling it a bummer is putting it mildly.
Available on Paramount+ February 2nd, 2024.
For more information, head to the official Paramount+ The Tiger’s Apprentice webpage.
Final Score: 2.5 out of 5.
Leave a Reply