I discovered ths pure gold giant gem a couple of days ago. I lack words to describe it in the right scale. I am still stunned, astonished. Probably one of the best movies ever for me. A so poignant, painfully sad story of a father who seeks revenge after his son's death, killed by a Tiger, a kind of God Monster, but not an evil monster, as you may guess. No, because the audiences are so close to this beast, so human in a certain way. You have in this Korean film, many links to the Asian culture that a Western audience may not understand at one hundred percent. But who cares after all, this matter doesn't spoil the pleasure which you will feel watching this pure golden jewell. No clichés here, no good vs evil scheme, that's why this contributes to the magic.

Nature vs. Men - broken down and all included. It is almost a fable, a fairy tale like story. But before that is the sentiment you see it: this is really violent and bloody. While it is mostly CGI blood and Tiger/s (the latter actually all the time I reckon),it is not less harrowing and intense.

How you perceive this, will depend on how you view animals. If you see them as equal to us or even better than us in some regards ... you will have quite the ride ahead of you. Because no matter the animal, they have survival instincts too. They care about their cubs/family, they protect them too.

This is vicious as is life ... this is not a circle of life kid friendly thing you'll be watching. Even Bambi comes to mind at places I reckon ... a particular one to be exact.

We have two heroes here ... but they are on the opposite side of things - on the other hand you also have the Japanese here, who only are out for murder (yes killing animals - I'm calling it murder).

Very powerful movie, tense and very well edited. The end is ... almost poetic on the other hand ... very brutal but kind of poetic ...

THE TIGER is a Korean historical epic with a difference: this one's about the manhunt for Korea's last tiger, nicknamed the 'Mountain Lord' for its ferocity and resistance to capture. I was in two minds about this one, being no fan of films about humans hunting animals, and indeed while certainly well-made, this lacks a certain something. On the plus side, it's well-acted by the entire cast, particularly Choi Min-sik who brings his usual gravitas, and the realism of the era is brought vividly to life.

Unfortunately, it's the tiger itself where this falls down. The CGI effects are sketchy at best, and downright poor in other areas (such as the wolves). It's no LIFE OF PI and indeed during the action scenes I felt like I was watching a LORD OF THE RINGS movie. Even worse, realism disappears when the tiger's around. It acts in human rather than tiger ways, it refuses to follow the laws of physics with impossible speeds and leaps, and it shrugs off devastating bullet wounds with ease. No blood poisoning in this movie, which increasingly becomes a fantasy as the running time goes on. It's also incredibly overlong, so by the end I really struggled with it.