The Tiger’s Apprentice
The Tiger’s Apprentice
The Tiger’s Apprentice: I have not seen any animated movie for quite a while even though I have attempted to see a couple of them over the past few weeks which did not strike me in particular. I believe the most recent animated movies that I watched last year were ‘Moana, Encanto and Nimona’ and I can say that I had pleasure in viewing them. It was quite entertaining and fun to watch them all.
Most of the animations that I watch these days are always too incomplete and lacking time and proper structure. I do long for the times of animation/cartoons from the 90s to early 2000s. I consider them all eras of nostalgia. Although I still have some few ones which are classic in my eyes and quite free from the norms of the modern day culture.
‘The Tiger’s Apprentice (2024)’ is an animated fantasy film, which is based on a novel released in 2003 bearing the same title written by Laurence Yep. It was directed by Robert Lorenzo and distributed by Paramount+. The story is about a Chinese American boy named Tom Lee who after the demise of his grandmother, has to become the apprentice of a conversing tiger, Mr. Hu and learn an ancient art of magic to qualify as the stand-in for the guardian of an ancient phoenix.
This animated movie comes with a wonderful cast that I was not expecting. The movie features the voice talents of Henry Golding, Brandon Soo Hoo, Lucy Liu, Sandra Oh, Michelle Yeoh, Bowen Yang, Leah Lewis, Kheng Hua Tan and Sherry Cola. I decided to ignore the negative reviews because this is also part of the reason I wanted to watch this animation. I did not allow it to deter me and in the end, it was really not that terrible the way people have been attacking this animation.
The animation begins with a flashback set in the past in which darkness surrounding Toms Lee and his grandmother is caused by some evil dark creatures. A protective womb of all’s zodiacs (creatures with superpowers) was how e believed fairly endowed women were protected. The zodiacs did come and che were lauded over the women’s heads. Further, it is pertinent to note that there was an emphasis on the fact that Tom is special, in fact he lives being the protector of a Phoenix egg.
Let us time travel to now when Tom has matured into a teenager. To this day, he doesn’t know even remotely as to who he is. Tom believes that his formative years were marred by bullying at school but one day, he effortlessly channeled something unrecognizable and astonishingly, it was his power that was wreaking havoc on his Bully. Unfortunately, this unexpected turn of events lead to Tom’s enforcers discovering his whereabouts and everything around him changed drastically when he found out that he has been sheltered all his life by a unicorn and that his grandmother was also the keeper of the Phoenix stone like him.
Nevertheless, with such a bigtruth, Tom never had the chance to fully immerse into a new life, as his evil hunts manage to locate him due to his grandmothers iron necklace which contains the Phoenix stone. Her grandmother had to pay for it as she could never allow herself to die being a guardian of the stone. – Tom’s grandmother gave her stone away so Tom might live and confront his enemies some other day. Will Cupido investigate the magical universe of his ancestors or will he rather seek revenge for the death of a loving grandmother?
This was a wonderful animation movie I will advise families to sit together and enjoy and create good moments. I highly recommend this movie for kids. It is wholesome, appropriate, devoid of modern day societal agenda’s and children will come out from this camp knowing the essence of unity. Parents with Kids, this is some nice stuff for you.
Despite some bad reviews, this film still got some positive reviews but now I understand why it was so misunderstood. This film was simply not meant for the people who watched it. No wonder the animation got a low score. It seems unfair that only grownups decide what movies are good enough to be watched. I wish there was some website where kids could also go on and provide views on the movies as well.
Some views also said that the animation was predictable and cliché. I personally don’t think that’s the case. Probably, if the animation had narrative elements like the ones sustaining social relationship in the present days, the overall rating for this film would be very high.
The plot was to me very well crafted, stimulating and intriguing. One has to appreciate the feature that explores themes such as family ties, friendship, teamwork, and the consequences of greed for power. These make the moral lessons from which children can learn good things from and probably adults too.
The flaw in the story that I perceived was a deficiency of a background for some of the characters. For example: the grandmother, parents, zodiacs, and the villains. It seems that the way the film ended suggests that a door was left open for a sequel which in my opinion is likely to have more episodes.
The voice acting is superb, the music/soundtrack is good and the jokes/humor had me in stitches. Especially the humor of The Tiger’s Apprentice. Scene arrangements were great, animation and effects were good but nothing to write home about. The quality of CGI was also decent. Not every film in this world has to have “Dreamworks/Disney” standard CGI.
Since I am rating this animation, I will say 8 out of 10 stars. It was a good, entertaining and an enjoyable movie for any family, especially kids. Would you watch this movie with your family? Yes, you would!
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