A Tiger Fighter is Hard to Find follows a episode production of a man who single-handedly fights and kills a tiger. When the government gets involved and sees the episode as a way to uplift the souls and strengthen hearts of the people, they ask the directors to reshoot with a more realistic tiger for the chance to win a prize. The problem is safely shooting a tiger-fighting scene with a real tiger and man.
I found both the treatment of Huping and the tiger to be poor and show the harsh consequences of ambition and greed. The director wanted to be shown at the capital and win a prize at any cost. He urged the star and hero, Huping, to keep engaging with a dangerous animal who was being held captive and beaten for entertainment. This was all in the name of creating a message the government can show through a TV show.
As if beating the tiger for fun wasn’t enough, they then decide to kill it and use its skin as a costume. The person in the costume is then also badly beaten by a traumatized Huping who doesn’t know the tiger isn’t real anymore. I felt bad for Huping, and I felt bad for the actor whose life would never be the same after being hospitalized by a coworker. What was worse was that, reading as the narrator, I was reading from the perspective of a bystander who thought some of the things happening were wrong but did nothing.
Overall, the story covers a lot of heavy material in a short piece about a tiger-fighting hero who raises the spirits of his people. There is the problem of mental health and trauma and the impact it has on a person. There is also the matter of animal abuse and the way life is exploited for entertainment (in this case, on behalf of the government). Then there is the way Huping is tossed aside once they got him to finish the job. He had tons of fans, but he could likely never work again.