The narrative hinge of The Tiger lies in the buried karmic connection between Chun Man-duk and the Mountain Lord. A decade earlier, Man-duk accidentally shot and killed his wife during a tiger hunt. Filled with remorse, Man-duk discovered two starving cubs left behind by a mother tiger he had slain; rather than killing them, he fed them and left them to survive. One of those cubs grew into the one-eyed Mountain Lord, forging an unspoken pact of mutual sorrow and restraint between the two.
This bond is shattered when Man-duk's son Seok secretly accompanies Goo-gyeong's bounty expedition. The tiger decimates the hunters, and Seok is fatally mauled in the chaos. In a moment of tragic grace, the Mountain Lord recognizes Seok, shields the boy from scavengers, and gently carries his lifeless body to Man-duk's front door. Overcome by grief, Man-duk cremates his son along with his cabin and prepares for an inevitable final pilgrimage.
In the finale atop a cliff in Mount Jirisan, Man-duk faces the mortally wounded Mountain Lord, both having lost their entire families. Rather than allowing the tiger to be turned into a Japanese trophy, Man-duk shoots the beast, and the tiger pounces, deliberately plunging both hunter and animal off the cliff into the snowy chasm. By choosing to die together in the untamed wilderness, they preserve their dignity and merge permanently into the sacred memory of Mount Jirisan.