“The Tiger’s Apprentice” is a good film for school-aged children, but I have some reservations about it.
The film is a clumsy adaptation of the children’s fantasy series with the same name. It poses the question, what if Chinese mythology were real?
The movie struggles with its pacing, due, in part, to the decision to include two montage sequences within a 10-minute span, and underdevelops too many of the book’s themes rather than focusing on a few.
Still, this movie will not struggle to hold the attention of children 10 and under. The character design of the 12 Zodiac figures of Chinese mythology is beautifully crafted. And the figures are animated in a vivid style.
While the pacing problems may leave some older kids and their parents wondering what exactly is going on, the children I watched it with were engaged by whatever busyness was happening at the moment.
Tom, our protagonist, is a teenaged boy who lives with his grandmother, the guardian of the Phoenix, an amulet she wears around her neck. The evil Loo wants to use the amulet to recreate the world without humans.
The grandmother lives in hiding because of this threat, but then Tom accidentally reveals her location. Loo kills his grandmother, and Tom is thrust into becoming the new guardian, a task he is helped along with by Hu, the tiger from the Chinese zodiac.
If the film manages to be about any one thing, it’s the question of identity. So much of our modern age deals with our self-constructed identities. Tom faces these same questions, trying to craft an identity to fit into his school, but ultimately realizes his identity comes from his family and his purpose.
Hu teaches him at one point that 1,000 years of ancestors stand behind him. As a reluctant hero, Tom learns to embrace something bigger and more important than he is — a lesson lacking in much of children’s entertainment.
But Tom is certainly a flawed hero. The children I watched it with noted that he ran away and stole without any consequences. And at the beginning of the film, Tom spouts off every imaginable teenage cliche about not liking your family, though he grows out of it.
Loo’s evil minions were legitimately scary nightmare fuel, though the kids I watched “The Tiger’s Apprentice” with seemed unbothered.
The immediate effect the film had was inspiring the kids to jump around playfighting like Hu the Tiger, despite a touching end where Tom resolves the conflict by remembering his grandmother’s teachings on nonviolence.
For parents, there is a lot to like here. The film is set in San Francisco, which comes alive in the film. The voice acting, particularly from Michelle Yeoh and Sandra Oh, is excellent and, at times, affecting.
While the animation throughout the entire film is excellent, when Tom goes into the amulet with the phoenix, the art style changes, and the watercolor-inspired art stands up with the “Spider-Verse” films as among the most gorgeous animation in cinema.
But the side characters, often the bread and butter of great children’s films, are lacking here. Rat is the main comic relief but is deeply unlikable, while other, better characters such as Goat barely get more than a moment’s attention.
As a parent, the problem with the film is that there is no obvious perfect audience. Kids old enough to manage the film’s more mature themes, like the flawed hero or deaths, will probably be more bothered by the pacing problems.
But kids ages 4 to 10 should be able to enjoy the movie, especially if, as a parent, you can help conceptualize a few things. By watching, they could gain an important lesson about who we really are. I’m giving it three out of five stars.
“The Tiger’s Apprentice” comes out Feb. 2 on Paramount+. It is rated PG.