Tiger’s Apprentice, The

Story

Raised by his grandmother Mrs Lee (voice of Kheng Hua Tan), Tom (voice of Brandon Soo Hoo) knows nothing about his heritage or the magical world that’s intertwined with his own. Mrs Lee does everything she can to protect Tom from Loo (voice of Michelle Yeoh), a malevolent woman who wants a powerful phoenix necklace that contains forces that could destroy the Earth if it falls into the wrong hands. Mrs Lee has spent a lifetime guarding the necklace.

When Tom unintentionally causes a bully to fly into the ceiling and when he removes a bunch of talismans from the wall of their home, he enables Loo to track them. When Mrs Lee sacrifices herself to save Tom and the necklace, Tom finds himself the reluctant apprentice of Mr Hu (voice of Henry Golding), who is also a tiger and one of the 12 zodiac warriors.

As Tom battles with guilt and grief over his grandmother’s death and tries to come to terms with the magical world he has been thrust into, he begins to develop his own powers. He tries to take on Loo alone, only to lose the necklace and lead many of the other zodiac warriors into a trap.

Can Tom find a way to stop Loo and free the zodiac warriors, or will the mortal world be darkened and destroyed?

Themes

Good versus evil; death of a loved one; bullying; magical forces; monsters

Violence

The Tiger’s Apprentice has some violence. For example:

A monster is hit by a truck, and another one is bashed into the side of a car. A third monster is caught under a wheel, and a group of monsters slams into the back of a car.
Zodiac animals punch, kick, ram and hit a group of monsters.
Tom is repeatedly punched, hit and shoved into a stack of lockers. He gets a prominent black eye and bruising.
Tom shoves a bully off him, and the bully is flung up to the ceiling where he gets stuck on something. The bully dangles from his underwear while students video him.
Mrs Lee shoves Tom away as Loo enters their home.
Hu battles monster-like creatures while trying to keep Tom safe.
Mrs Lee and Loo battle each other with magic blasting from their hands.
Monsters grab at Tom and Hu with their claws. They dig deeply into Hu’s shoulder.
Tom falls off a roof, and Hu catches him as he falls into a dumpster.
Mrs Lee uses magic to rip up floorboards and slam them into Loo.
Mrs Lee can see that she’s about to lose the battle. She throws her necklace to Tom and causes an explosion that destroys her surroundings and ends her life.
A rat is roughly captured and forced to transform into its human self.
Three monsters come to destroy Hu, Tom and a rat.
A dragon wraps her body around a monster and destroys it by squeezing so hard that it explodes.
Tom nearly takes out his eye by going over a fence and landing with his face millimetres from a sharp thorn.
Tom slashes at bushes with a sword and terrifies a squirrel.
A character is blasted into a wall.
Tom is told about the night when he was a baby. During this night, Hu was almost killed and his grandmother gave a bit of herself to save him.
A character hits Loo with a skateboard.
Monsters blast out of a street and are attacked by zodiac warriors. One is hit by a character with a rolling pin, another is hit with a skateboard, and a dragon blasts all the monsters.
The zodiac warriors are sucked into and trapped in Loo’s umbrella.
Tom fights Loo, kicking her in the face while an army of dark monsters races up the side of a building towards them.
People are turned into stone as their souls are sucked out of them.
Loo tells Tom that she didn’t kill him when he was a baby. She holds him out over a building so that he can watch millions of people die.
The zodiac warriors are set free and race up the side of the building towards Tom, blasting monsters out of the way as they go.
Loo is thrown into the air, kicked in the face and headbutted.
Loo tells Tom that he will die fighting, just like his grandmother did.
Loo breaks apart as the souls go back to the people who were turned to stone.
Tom falls off the roof of a tall building and Hu grabs him, trying to buffer the fall as he lands.
Tom appears to be past saving, so Hu implores a magical phoenix to take part of his soul and give it to Tom so that he can survive. Tom awakens to find that Hu has lost his colour but saved his life.

Sexual references

There are no sexual references in The Tiger’s Apprentice.

Alcohol, drugs and other substances

There’s no use of substances in The Tiger’s Apprentice.

Nudity and sexual activity

There’s no nudity and sexual activity in The Tiger’s Apprentice.

Product placement

There’s no product placement in The Tiger’s Apprentice.

Coarse language

There’s some mild coarse language in The Tiger’s Apprentice, including ‘heck’, ‘crap’, ‘furball’, ‘dumb’, ‘freak’, ‘crazy’, ‘loser’ and ‘sucked’.

Ideas to discuss with your children

The Tiger’s Apprentice is an animated action adventure based on the novel by Laurence Yap. The movie features an all-star cast, but the storyline feels familiar and predictable. It’s likely to be most enjoyed by older children and fans of the book.

The main messages from The Tiger’s Apprentice are to know your worth, believe in yourself and never give up.

Values in The Tiger’s Apprentice that you could reinforce with your children include courage, teamwork, determination, helpfulness and compassion.

The Tiger’s Apprentice could also give you the chance to talk with your children about the real-life consequences of things like:

being tolerant and accepting of traditions and customs that you don’t understand
going off alone to tackle a problem that can be solved only with help
using violence and coercion to get what you want.