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The Tiger AKA Daeho
[Blu-ray]
Blu-ray A - America - Well Go USA Review written by and copyright: Eric Cotenas (14th August 2016). |
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The Film
 Korea 1915: When reports reach the capital that the remains of a missing artillery troop sent up Mount Jinyi to root out rebels have been found slashed to pieces, Governor Maezono (The Twilight Samurai's Ren Ohsugi) orders Major Ryu (Jung Suk Won) to step up efforts to wipe out Korean tigers (whose furs are sent back to Japan as tributes), blaming the Korean native officer for local reticence to take on the eight-hundred-and-fifty-pound one-eyed Mountain Lord of Jinyi. Traveling to the base of the mountain, Ryu finds that the band of hunters (the only Koreans allowed to carry guns) – lead by Goo-gyeong (Breathless' Man-sik Jeong) – have managed to capture and kill the Mountain Lord's mate and cubs. Having lost his brother and had his face severely scarred by the Mountain Lord, Goo-gyeong is reluctant to recruit aged but skilled ex-hunter turn medicinal herb-gatherer Chun Man-duk (Oldboy's Min-sik Choi) to find the tiger's trail and lead them to its den, but the Mountain Lord has proven far more intelligent than assumed when Goo-gyeong tries to draw him down from the mountain using the corpse of one of his cubs. With the governor's visit imminent and his own honor at stake, Ryu urges Goo-gyeong to use any means necessary to capture the tiger including coercing Chun – who blames himself for his wife's death during his last attempt to flush out the beast – to join the hunting party, but that may be unnecessary when Chun's sixteen-year-old son Suk-yi (Sweet Sixteen's Yoo-Bin Sung) defiantly joins the hunters after learning that the mother of his fiancée since childhood has been seeking out a groom from a more prosperous family. A sort of a period, landlocked Jaws where the audience comes to root for the menace (and it comes to be associated with the Korean natives in relation to the Japanese interlopers), The Tiger boasts some immensely moving moments and excellent performances that make the drawn-out running time worth the effort. Most impressive is the CGI realization of the tigers when it comes to close-up movements and detail (long shots of it leaping and bouding through the woods and flinging victims like rag dolls look as ridiculous as in any other CGI monster movie), not to mention its range of expression through facial details, its more somber movement, and the sound effects vocalizations (recorded by Snowpiercer's Rob Nokes) particularly in the heartrending sequence in which it returns to its den with the carcass of one of its cubs and tries to revive it with a few licks before cuddling it under its chin and letting out a wail. Chun's stoicism, Ahab-esque Goo-gyeong's teeth-gnashing, and the governor's face-saving ruthlessness can only get so much mileage; but the film really stumbles in its suggestion that the Mountain Lord "deserves" the dignity of being killed at the hands of a master hunter once Chun realizes that he and the tiger are both wounded hunters who have lost everything dear to them. The gorgeous photography is the work of A Tale of Two Sisters's Mo-gae Lee) while subtler but no less elegant accompaniment comes from the scoring of Yeong-wook Jo (Thirst).
Video
Although this two-hour-plus film is given a single-layer encode, the 1080p24 MPEG-4 AVC 2.40:1 widescreen presentation is impressive throughout from the the rough-hewn textures of skin and clothing to the jungle settings and detail of the CGI tiger's close-ups. 
Audio
The primary audio option is a robust Korean DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track that vibrates with every tiger growl, stomp, and swipe while gunfire and the scoring seem subdued in comparison. A Dolby Digital 2.0 stereo downmix is also included, an it is serviceable but does not have the presence of the lossless surround track. Optional subtitles in English are also provided. 
Extras
The sole extra is the film's theatrical trailer (1:28). 
Overall
A sort of a period, landlocked Jaws where the audience comes to root for the menace (and it comes to be associated with the Korean natives in relation to the Japanese interlopers), The Tiger boasts some immensely moving moments and excellent performances that make the drawn-out running time worth the effort.
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