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The Tiger: An Old Hunter's Tale
(aka The Tiger, Daeho)
2015; directed by Park Hoon-Jung

There has been a controversial push by the South Korean government to portray a more positive image of the country in their education system, and that jingoistic take has filtered to their media as well, as evidenced by a string of releases that go to great pains to show South Korea as a great country, often at the expense of historical accuracy. Though many critics have decried this practice, the huge box office returns these sorts of films (including this one) have generated don't indicate this will be a trend that will be ending anytime soon.

The Tiger

The movie takes place in 1925, when Korea is under occupation by those evil, nasty, and despicable Japanese -- we know they're like this via their near cartoonish characterization -- and they're hunting down all of the tigers in Korea, because... well, why is never really clearly explained, except that the Japanese are evil, nasty, and despicable.

The Tiger

Anyway, there's one -- yes, one -- tiger left in Korea. How exactly does anyone know this? Like how many licks it takes to get to the middle of a Tootsie Pop, the world may never know. But those evil, nasty, and despicable Japanese want to kill the tiger, so they employ local hunters to try and take the big cat down, which doesn't end up well. There is a master hunter left who must struggle with the guilt of killing the last tiger, or letting the Japanese ravage the countryside as they get more brazen in their pursuit.

The Tiger

The plot and characterizations are all a bit flimsy -- even the Koreans aren't portrayed all that well, basically boiling down to a set of rote stock types -- so director Park Hoon-Jung tires to pump things up with some fairly gory scenes featuring CGI tiger attacks that will remind some viewers of the bear mauling from The Revenant. Even though the special effects employed are admittedly impressive, the matters come off as a bit silly instead of scary or thrilling, turning more into a campy monster movie. The big issue is that this is a film that runs at 140 minutes and is supposedly serious dramatic fare, so the flashes of violence will either come off as gratuitous (if you don't like that sort of stuff) or too little, too late (if you do enjoy flashes of claret). By the end of the movie, many viewers might find themselves checking out, not really caring who the tiger attacks or who survives them.

RATING: 5

This movie has been released uncut (besides a shortening of the title of simply The Tiger) and in the original Korean language in North America by Well Go USA. It is available on VOD, DVD, and Blu-ray from Amazon. Extras on the disc-based versions include deleted scenes, a behind the scenes featurette, and trailers for the movie and other Well Go releases.

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