The Daily Stream: The Paper Tigers is a Cornball Martial Arts Dad Comedy
slashfilm.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from slashfilm.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
THE PAPER TIGERS Director Bao Tran On Finding The Perfect Blend Of Martial Arts And Comedy (Exclusive)
comicbookmovie.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from comicbookmovie.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
The Plot:
Once known as the Kung Fu prodigies âThe Three Tigers,â the trio of martial artists are now middle-aged men one kick away from a pulled muscle. Their master teacher, Sifu Cheung (Roger Yuan), is murdered, which springs them into action. The childhood friends reunite to avenge him, as they juggle dead-end jobs, dad duties and old grudges.
Lynnâs Take:
A crisp throwback to the â90s era of martial arts movies, âThe Paper Tigersâ is a warm-hearted exercise in reconnecting friendships and rekindling your purpose.
First-time director Quoc Bao Tran, who also wrote the screenplay, has assembled a trio of likable actors whose chemistry is palpable for this action comedy: Alain Uy as Danny, a divorced dad who works in insurance; Ron Yuan as Hing, out-of-shape trash talker who used to work in hotel security; and Mykel Shannon Jenkins as Jim, who has been estranged from Danny.
An old and disillusioned martial arts instructor bites the dust at the start of the Asian-American martial arts family comedy “The Paper Tigers.” And as Sifu Cheung (Roger Yuan) lays dying, his killer makes a suggestive hand gesture, as if he were somehow in tune with Cheung’s ebbing life force. Now it’s here, now it’s gone.
The plot then kicks in, and we follow a trio of Cheung’s estranged students as they reunite with each other and themselves. They’re out of shape, out of practice, and out of original ideas, but still basically charming. That’s thanks in no small part to a strong ensemble cast, led by character actors Alain Uy, Ron Yuan, and Mykel Shannon Jenkins, but also because of the sheer indestructibility of the family and martial arts movies clichés that writer/director/editor Tran Quoc Bao uses throughout “The Paper Tigers.” Many jokes are driven into the ground and a few complex human emotions are steamrolled into brittle sitcom-style dialogue and at