Le fils du garde-chasse

When two poachers kill a game-keeper in the performance of his duties, his titular child tracks them down. Despite their almost killing him, he leads the police in pursuit of the one who flees.

It's largely a chase movie over wild and varied terrain, shot in the wild. Although the copy I looked at was in a bleached-out and low-contrast condition, it's a very well executed film for its year and will doubtless be even more shocking to the modern audience because of the youth and bloodthirstiness of its protagonist -- even though children, in my experience, tend to be bloodthirstier than better socialized adults -- by that I mean older people who have actually grown up.

It's directed by Alice Guy. Madame Guy is usually credited as the first woman director. I say she was the first film director and marvel at the apparent necessity of the distinction.

The ending is darkly vengeful, as others have mentioned, but, otherwise, "The Game-Keeper's Son" follows the basic chase formula--except that there are actually two chases here--popular in early cinema and instrumental in the development of continuity editing and, thus, narrative cinema. This one, with the poaching and weapons use, is especially reminiscent of one of the earliest chase films, "A Desperate Poaching Affray" (1903), but without the innovative reverse angle shots. This Gaumont film credited to Alice Guy does well, however, to exploit the rocky natural landscape. Besides the continuity editing across 11 shots, there's also one instance, at least, of panning to keep action within frame.