● I will be comparing Clip 3: By the Pool with the scene in The Grandmaster where Gong

Er fights Ma San at the train station (1:26:42 - 1:39:31) in regards to globalization.

● In this scene in The Grandmaster, Gong Er is avenging her father’s death and honor by

fighting Ma San, her adopted brother who betrayed and killed their father. Both fights are

on behalf of another’s honor, but the fight in The Grandmaster is heavily rooted in Asian

history & geopolitics whereas the fight in The Paper Tigers is a caricature of the same

kind of fight post-globalization.

● In Clip 3: By the Pool, the three main characters, the Paper Tigers, fight three other “fake

disciples” in a contest for their Sifu’s honor; At Sifu’s funeral earlier in the film, the

degenerate Kung Fu students are seen taking selfies with Sifu’s image. Since it would be

dishonorable to Sifu’s memory for his image to be associated with the degenerate Kung

Fu students, the conditions of the Paper Tigers winning is that the degenerate students

must delete the photos. Similarly, in The Grandmaster, Gong Er fights Ma San to avenge

her father’s death. During the Second Sino-Japanese War, Ma San betrays and kills Gong

Yu Tian, his and Gong Er’s father figure and Sifu, in favor of the Manchurian puppet
 government. Despite her father’s wish for her to get married and give up Kung Fu, Gong

Er swears vengeance.

● Clearly, both fights are on behalf of a deceased Sifu figure for all of the fighters, but the

resemblance stops there. One fight is fought by three pairs of students, and is comedically

mismatched; the other is fought by even matched sibling figures, and is stylistically and

narratively serious. The goal of the fight in The Paper Tigers is clearly to get a laugh

from the audience; it’s shot with a hand-held camera and has non-diegetic hip hop music

in the background. The fight between Gong Er and Ma San is done with lots of

steadi-cam, match on action editing, and slow motion, and is meant as an impressive,

stylized climax. As I mentioned before, the fight in The Grandmaster is deeply

intertwined with the Asian geopolitics of the time and Kung Fu as a form of identity for

Gong Er and Ma San. If not for the political conflict of the time, it’s possible Ma San

might not have been tempted to betray and kill Gong Yu Tian. Additionally, Gong Er

literally swears off marriage, children, and teaching for vengeance, which denotes how

much higher the stakes are for her and Ma San as opposed to a few ill taken photographs.

The fight in The Grandmaster can’t be any more rooted in the Asian source material for

Kung Fu. Conversely, the fight in The Paper Tigers, takes place in a deserted pool in the

Seattle area and is more of a fight between the old vs. the young than between two skilled

and evenly matched competitors. For both parties, Kung Fu is not a present or proper part

of their identity; for one party it is implied to be improperly learned, and for the other it

has been long since abandoned. The main fighters in The Paper Tigers instead deal with

non-Kung Fu problems, including family, work, health, and other issues that show their

disconnect from Kung Fu. There is no greater Asian political conflict, and even one of
 the original Paper Tigers isn’t Asian. The fight in The Paper Tigers might refer to the

basic tenet of honor in regards to Kung Fu, but it does not attempt to include the complex

historical context of Asian politics in order to appeal to a globalized audience. That kind

of background isn’t necessary for a globalized audience, and is part of the evolution of

Kung Fu away from something that must be strictly Asian.

● Even though The Paper Tigers consists of a watered down version of the basic fight for

honor, it’s also about a reclamation of those Kung Fu values. The main character, Danny

“Eight Hands,” starts out the film unwilling to stand up for himself and denies his Kung

Fu knowledge. Even in the pool fight scene, he is reluctant to engage and is pushed into it

by his compatriots. By the end of the movie, Danny emerges ready to do the right thing

and fight for honorable causes, as he has reconnected with his Kung Fu training and

roots; specifically, he recalls the meditative breathing he learned that allowed him to be

such a skilled warrior. The film even ends with him having shared Kung Fu with his son

after having supported his son’s decision to honorably fight to defend a friend. This

passing on of legacy, particularly from father to son, is another recognizable trope of

Kung Fu movies that The Paper Tigers calls back to.

● The pool scene in The Paper Tigers represents a post-globalization version of the same

fight between Gong Er and Ma San in The Grandmaster. With all the common Kung Fu

genre identifiers in The Grandmaster, it’s unmistakably rooted in nationalism and identity

in addition to Kung Fu. The characters in The Paper Tigers appeal more to a globalized

audience with less knowledge of the Asian roots of Kung Fu by leading the audience on a

journey of reclamation of Kung Fu values. Audience learns with Danny the importance of

fairness, honor, and justice in Kung Fu; it’s said multiple times in the film that without
those values, Kung Fu is not Kung Fu. On top of that, nowhere does The Paper Tigers

imply that “Asianess” is a prerequisite for Kung Fu, which is another nod to the evolution

of the genre. Finally, just as The Grandmaster ends with Ip Man passing on his legacy to

the young Bruce Lee, The Paper Tigers ends with Danny passing on his legacy to his son,

and thus also the audience in our understanding of Kung Fu and its origins and meaning.