Aside from all the potential risks, the director and some of the crew wanted to reenact an old folklore about a man fighting a tiger for the approval of the governor and audience. The title of the story is very true because nobody wants to fight a tiger. The average sized man vs a wild animal weighing over 300 pounds of pure muscle is not the most ideal matchup in the world. A tigers instinct is to kill to survive and a man placed in front of it is seen as no difference than a typical prey. The director could only find one individual willing enough to place himself in danger for the aspect of clout. You pretty much have to crazy to do that, especially with tranquilizers and medics on standby. That is exactly what he was, crazy. To replicate the original Chinese story and turn it into a movie, the fighter had to continually punch the tiger in the head and ride around on his back for multiple seconds. Once again an actual tiger would tear any human being to shreds if it wanted. But after tranquilizing the tiger, and the fighter thinking he killed it after one or two punches, he ran around telling everyone he killed it. This concerned everyone and push comes to shove, mild schizophrenia was diagnosed. Now there is nothing wrong with someone having that, but there is something wrong with the director continuing to try and put him in the situation of fighting a tiger even after the diagnosis. You could probably guess this went wrong again, with the tiger tearing up his clothes and his foot. If one were to take anything from this story, its just sit back and ask yourself “is this a good idea?”