The Paper Tigers

Midway through “The Paper Tigers,” there’s a brawl in an empty pool: on the left, a trio of arrogant youngsters with serious moves; on the right, three middle-aged men who tout their seniority. The Tigers were once Seattle’s greatest kung fu fighters. Key word: “Once.”Danny (Alain Uy), a divorced dad, gets the wind knocked out him; Hing (Ron Yuan) hobbles around on a bad knee; Jim (Mykel Shannon Jenkins) runs a boxing studio but doesn’t remember what to do with his hands. Somehow, the Tigers emerge victorious. But their methods are, uh, not flattering.The Paper Tigers 2021 Movie Download.

Funded by a Kickstarter campaign, this charming debut from the writer and director Tran Quoc Bao reworks the kung fu comedy through the lens of his experience growing up as a Bruce Lee-loving Asian-American on the West Coast.

In the opening, home video-style footage depicts our heroes as sprightly teenagers training under their beloved Sifu Cheung (Roger Yuan). Twenty-five years later, the estranged grumps reunite to avenge their master’s death. Unfortunately, the distended, sometimes clichéd plot detracts from the snappiness of the comedy, which otherwise brims with snort-inducing one-liners. Particularly funny is a Chinese-speaking white guy (Matthew Page), who fancies himself more Asian than the actual Asians.Bao’s lighthearted, refreshing approach neither succumbs to whitewashing nor the model-minority myth. The film sticks to the action-comedy basics, which is just fine.

Then they learn of their sifu’s questionable death, and, egged on by their steroidally enhanced former nemesis Carter (Matthew Page, bringing excellent deadpan-lummox energy), the trio reunite to investigate. This obviously means having to progress through a whole bunch of beimo challenges against fitter and more vicious opponents, culminating in villain Zhen Fan (Ken Quitugua, also fight choreographer). Somehow, the stakes remain high enough while staying well inside the bounds of PG-13 violence, and if that means the fights are not the most spectacular you’ll ever see, it also gives the wit of their execution — abetted by Kris Kristensen’s nimble editing and Shaun Mayor’s pleasing photography — room to flourish.