The focus is on Tom Lee (Brandon Soo Hoo), who was born and raised by his grandmother, Kheng Hua Tan, in a cluttered Victorian house in San Francisco. There are suspicions that she is a witch. By appearance, he seems like an average 15 year old boy attending a high school, but after he unintentionally slams a bully into the roof during a minor brawl, he starts to realize that things are not what they seem. Unfortunately, this action does not go unnoticed by Loo (Yeoh), who is a wicked person interested in acquiring the magical locket that Grandma has controlled for it is capable of immense destructive power in the wrong hands.
Now that he has the necklace, Hu (Golding), a tiger who has the ability to transform himself into a human being and is one of the twelve Zodiacs that vowed to protect humankind from the evil Loo, comes to Tom’s rescue. Tom thus learns how to become a guardian himself. In addition, Hu introduces Tom to several members of the team including the dragon Mistral (Oh) and the rat thief Sidney (Yang). Strong forces of good begin to fend off evil against evil forces. Eventually, it comes down to Tom as the one who is entrusted with the future of the world.
It is abundantly clear that, for these filmmakers, one of the main shortcomings of the film was the fact that he was able to waste the film’s strongest selling point: the fine cast. A good cast is usually assumed to have enough time to showcase their talent but due to the poor pacing of the story along with the short duration of the film (the film is just 80 minutes into its course when the end credits begin), most of their efforts are wasted. Apart from Yeo and Golding who got two of the prominent roles and Yang as the comic relief, no other actors had screen time. If the Rabbit actor Greta Lee had even one line of words, I must have missed it completely at this rate. Strangely, More attention has been given to the brief-running movie than the length where a director could give their characters time for development and focus on the story because the world is filled with slow moving movies.
The Tiger’s Apprentice is not an especially terrible picture at least. There are some memorable animations and a few laughs at best. But it is more reminiscent of those agonizing projects that appear to have combined all the ingredients on paper for a creative and unique film only to not create one at all.
It can even be energetic and appealing enough to hold the younger spectators’ attention as the film plays out. Perhaps if enough of them saw it that would set the wheels in motion for a sequel that would provide the story which is rich in mythology and characters, the time it truly deserves.
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