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人虎戀 (1977)
Tiger Love


Reviewed by: Gaijin84
Date: 01/17/2009
Summary: More like Tiger Crap...

Tiger Love, starring Steven Tung, takes a bit from Romeo & Juliet for its storyline, but then manages to twist (or strangle) into something different. Shin Lan (Woo Gam) and Shao Ho (Lo Lieh) are lovers, but unfortunately come from two spatting familes, the Shers and the Lins respectively (not quite as pretty sounding as the Montagues and Capulets). When discovered, Shin Lan jumps to her supposed death and life between the families returns to the relative normality of unrest. However, Shin Lan actually survives, and is protected by a tiger that helps raise the child she was pregnant with at the time of her leap. The child is named Lin Shao Chang and even learns a fighting style from watching the tiger. After locals come hunting for the tiger, Shao Chang decides to head into the village for the first time and look for a girl he saw during the hunt. Things start to go downhill at that point, as villagers harass Shao and he falls for the Sher girl, a no no considering he is technically from the Lin family. Finally, things turn completely for the worst when Shin Lan is killed and the tiger decides to take revenge on the entire Sher family, one by one.

There are many elements that make Tiger Love a disturbing and completely terrible movie. It starts with the introduction of the tiger, who sees Woo Gam's character lying on a branch and is trying to get her for dinner. She wakes up and is so scared that she urinates on the tiger's head. Later, this is described as Shin Lan having "kissed" the tiger, which if legend holds true, makes the tiger Shin's servant for life. After she faints and falls from the tree, the tiger is shown licking the half naked body (or I have to assume mannequin) in inappropriate spots. The next scene has a toddler running around. My first assumption was somehow the director was trying to indicate that the child was fathered by the tiger, which was about to put this film in a Cat III rating, but later it's revealed that he is Lo Lieh's character's son. You also get a scene of the 3 year old playing with a real, full-grown tiger, which proceeds to take a full swipe at the child's head, viciously knocking him over. Where is protective services! The film itself is hardly worth mentioning. The fight choreography is bad, and Lo Lieh really only appears for about 10 minutes. To further muddle things, after Woo Gam's character is killed, the film completely shifts genres and turns into a horror/ghost movie, with the tiger changing its form into a fanged, cannibalistic woman in order to take revenge for its master's death. It's too strange to even try to explain.

1.5/10

Reviewer Score: 2