박훈정: 대호
The Tiger: An Epic Duel Between
Two Lords of the Mountains
I was initially very hesitant to watch this film. Having caught a glimpse of a scene where an oversized, blatantly virtual tiger bounced around like a wuxia warrior, slaughtering half an army, I was sufficiently deterred. Yet, the word of the film's general success and my boundless respect for Choi Min-shik piqued my curiosity. Ultimately, I was glad that I could see this popular work as a bonus addition to my selection at the opening screening of the festival.
Despite having ambivalent feelings even after the screening, I was very pleasantly surprised. It is a cliché that films truly live on the big screen rather than on matchbox-sized monitors, but for this film, that is doubly true. The Tiger is intentionally grandiose, requiring a monumental scale for its message—encoded in the visuals—to truly resonate. Everything is elevated to a higher dimension where it is not just primary reality that exists, but the symbolism of things. Accordingly, the stunningly filmed natural landscapes rise from being a mere tourist-vignette of Korea’s geography to becoming symbols of the primordial power and order of the natural world. The silent mountains become petrified deities; the fog, rain, and snow become their emotional expressions.
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| Director Park Hoon-jung |
The tiger is an integral part of this world—a unique concentrate of it. He is not merely a common predator but a mythological being. The film’s most remarkable achievement is elevating this royal creature into a protagonist with an independent personality and consciousness. This is where the virtuality of the execution finds its meaning: the nearly unreal size and the tiger’s reactions would not have been possible with a real animal. The animators and VFX specialists did an incredible job. This tiger is truly the Lord of the Mountains, an undeniably divine being, though of the cruel variety. His gait, his gaze, and the realistic matting of his fur almost make one forget that what we are seeing is pure illusion.
The plot runs on two main threads. The primary story feels like a duel between two lonely adversaries in a Western, racing toward an inevitable final showdown. The lives of the tiger and the hunter (Choi Min-shik) are tragically intertwined. Even under the pressure of starvation, the hunter remains a man who respects nature. The tiger, who owes his life to this attitude, recognizes this—though it is not enough for forgiveness. If the tiger is the expression of nature’s primordial order, then the hunter’s character rises to become a symbol of human wisdom. The tiger takes his revenge on the hunter while simultaneously bowing before his humanity. The hunter suffers his losses knowing that, despite his pain, they are inevitable stages of atonement. The final confrontation is thus no longer between enemies, but between two tormented beings sentenced to eternal loneliness, who ultimately exist only for each other.
This law is ignored by the other hunter leading the group (Jung Man-sik), who seeks revenge for a serious loss. However, his hatred leads to blindness, the price of which is always failure. While the figure is tragic, he cannot quite fulfill the directorial intent of elevating him to a hero.
It is admirable how many ways Koreans find to take revenge for their historical grievances. The other plot thread leads to the Japanese occupation in 1925. Although collaborators assist the occupiers, the Japanese ultimately leave the scene as a defeated army. No military force can withstand the grit of Korean resistance. This adds another layer of interpretation: the tiger is clearly a symbol of Korea itself, a mythical expression of the nation, while the hunter represents the indomitability of independent national existence.
However, heroization is dangerous territory. In small doses, it is uplifting; in large doses, it becomes a source of humor. The film constantly dances on a high wire. It mostly succeeds, with only a few noticeable stumbles. One such stumble is the exaggerated mask of the blinded hunter, where claw marks look as if they were carved in with a concrete drill, and his death scene, where the script fails the director. Amidst bloody, low-angle shots intended to magnify his stature, the simple question "Are you okay?" addressed to him suddenly elicits laughter.
I also felt the direct acknowledgment of defeat placed in the mouth of the Japanese military leader was a slip. While this likely satisfies the Korean soul, it pulls the film’s elevated tone back down to earth. The audience is not foolish; they understand what they are seeing without such bluntness.
The heavy irreality of the final sequences also requires the audience’s acceptance. Our minds and hearts react differently to the sight of the hunter—who could barely stand a moment ago—crawling up a vertical snowy peak, followed by soldiers struggling up a 90-degree incline. We shouldn't even ask how the tiger got up there. Fortunately, we willingly accept the surreal location for the sake of the mythological conclusion, which fits perfectly with the film's core theme. The closing images bid farewell with beauty and peace.
Because the story focuses on the duel between the tiger and the hunter, individual characters are somewhat sketched. Nevertheless, we see lasting performances. Jung Man-sik remains authoritative as the vengeful hunter, and Kim Sang-ho’s comedic figure is memorable. Sung Yoo-bin’s adolescent rebellion is authentic, and his scenes with his father are emotionally rich.
As for Choi Min-shik, everything he touches turns to gold. It is difficult to put into words the acting prowess that radiates from the screen in every moment. In reality, we see nothing more than a grumbling old man who can barely move, yet every gesture and every look has weight and significance. His pain is human; the strength derived from his loss is superhuman. Without him, this film simply would not be what it is.
Minor flaws aside, director Park Hoon-jung offers an unparalleled spectacle and provides useful lessons regarding the meaning of our lives. I am glad I saw it; I believe we all left the opening screening of the 9th Korean Film Festival with that same feeling.
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