“Grunt.”

Justin’s rating: Just say “no” to eating someone’s arm, even if you’re hungry

Justin’s review: To be honest, I did not know what to expect coming to a Korean movie made in 1994 that featured (a) cavemen, (b) dinosaurs, and (c) cavemen butting heads with dinosaurs. I just had a feeling that it could be the worst or the most awesome thing I’d see this year.

Welcome to Tyranno’s Claw, population you and me. The chamber of commerce hasn’t been invented yet, and the tourism board is having difficulty coming up with a slogan that is something more than abstract shrieking.

The first thing you need to know about this movie is that there’s not a single line of dialogue. Y’know, cavemen. So I hope you like hoots, hollers, grunts, yells, and roars, because that’s mostly what you’re going to be hearing for these 90 minutes. This also means that nobody has names or, to be honest, much of a personality.

We’re introduced to the Dark Tribe, a group of savage cavemen who aren’t that nice and worship a cave-dwelling T. Rex to whom they occasionally make a human sacrifice. A couple members of the tribe — guy and girl — decide to strike out for a less brutal scene and find a nicer tribe that worships a Triceratops. Eventually the two tribes come into conflict, and all of human and dino history is shaped by these events.

Oh, and I think there’s also a third tribe of cannibals, which can be differentiated by their rudimentary appearance and heavier fur coating. Also, they were eating people.

There’s a strange tone to Tyranno’s Claw that takes some getting used to. Aside from the aforementioned lack of talking, this film is odd because of the juxtaposition of brutal prehistoric living, deadly giant beasts, and slapstick comedy. All of these take turns and are interesting, I guess, but I never got used to the Flintstone version of Three Stooges showing up. I suppose the idea here was that cavemen are ignorant dorks so they might as well act like it.

I don’t know about you, but I don’t find cavemen interesting movie characters. I’ll only watch a movie featuring them if something else is going on. Such as, for example, a time-traveling visitor from the future, or a foreign exchange student to modern society, or head-butting dinosaurs.

Tyranno’s Claw has plenty of the latter. As tiresome as I found the physical buffoonery of the cavemen, at least they had plenty of tussels with a variety of dinos and other prehistoric critters. And while those might not’ve been scientifically accurate models, they did feature a whole lot of enthusiastic stunt actors in rubber outfits willing to wrestle anyone in sight.

These “dinosaurs” are definitely the stars of this show — and not because they’re aiming for realism and immersion. I loved ’em because of how UN-dinosaurish they act. You’ll see them skitter about, hopping like they’re the Easter bunny, sneezing on people, honking like a goose, getting into rock fights, and playing peeka-a-boo with napping people. They’re very silly, and if you’re in the mood to find that sort of thing amusing, then you’ll have plenty to snicker at here.

Intermission!

• That turtle is like “I am not in this movie. Ignore me.”
• So. Many. Skulls.
• That’s a bad wakeup call when you find you’re staked out and about to be eaten by a T.Rex
• Ew he actually ate a cockroach
• Chasing a pig is a lot like playing football with linebackers who can’t stop anything
• Pig eating in caveman times was so messy
• Girls don’t like to be stomped on. For some reason.
• Did that dinosaur just honk like a goose and then do a 50-foot gainer off a cliff? And then headbutt a pooping dude?
• DEAD SNEEZING CORPSE
• Another dinosaur movie, another T. Rex eating a goat
• Of course there’s going to be some farting used as a defensive weapon
• That’s a super deadly… boa constrictor? That can kill with a bite?
• Check your meat before you eat — because it could be someone’s arm
• It’s not quicksand, it’s quick…weeds? OK, it’s a pond. With skulls.