The Tiger’s Apprentice Review: A Hollow Animation That Doesn’t Properly Develop Its Characters

There are animations that speak to audiences of all ages and there are those that are simply meant to engage younger audiences for an hour and a half. The Tiger’s Apprentice is the latter. The film’s pacing is swift, leaving the story unfolding too fast to allow characters to breathe before we’re thrown into the next big action sequence. The story is generic, and it’s definitely not memorable. There’s a lack of warmth and heart to the character dynamics, and its overarching story is sometimes doing too much without slowing down to give attention to its worldbuilding and development.

Based on the novel by Laurence Yep, The Tiger’s Apprentice is a 2024 animation action-adventure film. When Tom Lee discovers that his family has been protectors of a mysterious Phoenix Egg for centuries, he must learn from a new mentor named Mr. Hu, a tiger, to live up to his family’s legacy and save the world from a new threat.

Pros

• The Tiger’s Apprentice has enough for younger kids to enjoy

Cons

• The story is rushed and the worldbuilding lacking
• The film lacks heart
• The characters are poorly developed

The Tiger’s Apprentice’s Characters Are One-Dimensional

It’s hard to become fully invested in any of the characters because they’re so hollowly written. There are the occasional moments that have depth and emotion, but they’re so few and far between that, when they came, I found myself wondering why there was an overall lack of development to begin with. It would have certainly made us feel more when Henry Golding’s Tiger (who can transform into a human) and Tom finally got a scene to express those feelings. It erases any emotion The Tiger’s Apprentice may have had, usually replacing it with empty dialogue and magical action scenes.

Tom (Brandon Soo Hoo) and his grandmother’s (Tan Kheng Hua) relationship is barely established before he’s sent on a soaring adventure to protect the phoenix egg — which is passed on to him by his grandma — from falling into the hands of the evil Loo, a one-note villain who has some spark thanks to Michelle Yeoh’s committed voice performance. But her evil plans fall flat, too, which is a shame considering her entire character arc is what’s holding up Tom’s character development as an untrained guardian suddenly thrust into a magical world he doesn’t wholly understand.

As viewers, we’re Tom, thrown into the film’s narrative with little to keep us rooted to what’s going on. We’re simply taken on a wild ride filled with empty adventure, living zodiacs, and a villain who wants to recreate the world with no humans in it — the reasons behind the latter are muddled. Perhaps the character who makes the least sense is Leah Lewis’ Rav, Tom’s schoolmate. A twist involving her connections is revealed about halfway through the film, but it never amounts to anything meaty, and Rav’s decision is shoe-horned in to create conflict that is flimsily handled.

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The Animated Story Is Lacking Despite An Interesting Set-Up

The Tiger’s Apprentice can only be described as basic. Pockets of charm pop up here and there, but it’s never enough to sustain it. The story itself has a lot of potential — a kid is thrown into a fantastical world his family’s been a part of for generations after believing himself mediocre for so long is intriguing on the surface, and there’s a lot that could have been mined from the premise alone. But the film doesn’t take its time to establish Tom’s feelings before he’s on his way to becoming guardian, something that doesn’t feel earned by the end.

The story is just so rushed, there’s barely any time spent on establishing the world we’re introduced to before it’s full-speed ahead. Considering the film is barely an hour and 23 minutes long (and it ends much earlier than that), there could have been more time spent fleshing out the story enough so that at least the big character moments and twists land. It’s severely lacking on that front, but The Tiger’s Apprentice has enough to entertain the younger kiddos with its occasional humor, bright animation style, and its transforming zodiac characters, even if it’ll barely engage with older audiences.