Emboscada en Extremo Oriente

And that pretty much sums it up for me. This should have been a great little family film, even if it is surprisingly violent for a PG. An interesting story of a child and his teacher being kidnapped is let down by some woeful dubbing and the child lead has a very thick accent that is hard to understand. The direction is very average and the great supporting cast of Toshiro Mifune, Hardy Kruger and Ronald Fraser is given very little to do (Fraser and Kruger also turn up in Euan Lloyds next feature, 1978s 'The WIld Geese' where they have far more substantial parts).

Niven saves the film with a performance of charm personified and is surprisingly effective playing a reluctant hero who lies his way into a decent job and then spins glorified untruthful tales of his previous heroism to impress his young charge. Of course the lies come back to haunt him but his colourful character just about saves this film from oblivion. It is a shame in some ways as with a little more care this could have been a better film than it is but something went wrong . Clumsy dialogue, badly explained politics, some comic book baddied and pedestrian directing coupled with obvious voice dubbing for some of the cast really let a good idea down here. Bit of a shame really.

You would be forgiven at first into thinking that this was an old Walt Disney children's film. The humour is family orientated and typically weak - this type of film always has an annoying American character in holiday mode who pops up every so often. However the story is quite clever, albeit moralistic - the moral is don't pretend to be something you ain't.

The main problem with this film is that you are unsure what kind of viewers it is actually aimed at. In between the "sweet" scenes of David Niven and his young cheeky Asian charge there are shootings,terrorist bombings and assassination attempts - hardly Walt Disney.

However, the story is quite good with nice appearances from familiar faces and, apart from the rather insipid and soppy vocal version of the theme tune, is wrapped up fairly well. A good Saturday-afternoon-with-nothing-to-do sort-of-film

A formal , prim and somewhat serious English gentleman called Bradbury (David Niven) , an ex-army Major , has got a job in a troubled Far East country tutoring a young boy . As Niven is contacted as the tutor to the child of the Japanese Ambassador (Toshro Mifune) . He teaches the little boy, Koichi (Ando), and amuses him by spinning him tales of WWII battles , derring-do , feats and allegedly acts of heroism . Their lives change when he and the boy are abducted by terrorists for political objectives . They all saw him as a hero ... but could he live up to it?

In the film there is a feeling relationship between tutor and pupil , but also there are pursuits , fights , kidnapping , violence , crossfire ,terrorist bombings and assassination attempts . The events and characters depicted in this photoplay are fictitious , though the thunderous deeds can be happened in whatever far country from East World . The film relies heavily on the honeyed as well as sweet relationship betwen David Niven and his young cheeky Asian at charge . David Niven gives a sober but fine acting as an English gentleman with dark past , providing a certain bitterness and sadness to his role . His peculiar and colorful role just about saves this movie from oblivion and the complete disdain by critics . Support cast is pretty good , including nice appearances from familiar faces , such as : Hardy Kruger , Ivan Desny , Miiko Taka , Jeff Corey, Patricia Donahue , Ronald Fraser , Irene Tsu , Kurt Christain and the always great Toshiro Mifune .

It contains an atmospheric cinematography by John Cavacas . Shot on location in Bavaria, Germany , Malacca, Genting Highlands, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia and Twickenham Film Studios, St Margarets, Twickenham, Middlesex, England, UK And evocative musical score by Roy Budd in the seventies style , including the usual lyrics by Sammy Cahn . This some boring film produced in medium budget by Euan Lloyd was middlingly directed by Ken Annakin , though being sporadically fun and entertaining . In the 1960s he was one of several British directors along with Guy Green, John Guillermin who specialized in turning out all-star, splashy, big-budget European/American co-productions, shot on the Continent. He was one of the directors of the epic World War II spectacle The longest day (1962) and went solo on Battle of the Bulge (1965), both of which were financial--if not exactly critical--successes. Ken was an expert on Adventure genre as ¨The new adventures of Pippi Longstockings¨, ¨Pirate movie¨ , ¨Paper tiger¨, ¨The fifth Musketeer¨ , ¨Call of wild¨, ¨The Swiss family Robinson¨, ¨Land of fury¨, ¨The Sword and the Rose¨, ¨The story of Robin Hood and his Merry Men¨, ¨Third man on the mountain¨ and Wartime genre as ¨Battle of the Bulge¨, and ¨The Longest day¨. Rating . 5/10 . Average .

David Niven of course reached the high point of his career with his Best Actor Oscar for Separate Tables, where he played a blowhard "major' who was a permanent guest at Wendy Hiller's establishment. 18 years later he kind of revives that character when he takes a job as a tutor for Toshiro Mifune's little boy Ando in Paper Tiger.

Like in Separate Tables Niven puts on a great front about his great war exploits which is all a front to hide a deeply flawed man. Here he's doing the same thing for Ando. Mifune is the Japanese ambassador to some Asian island country, not named but I'm guessing Sri Lanka because there is a reference to a Tamil minority that is a rebel faction.

Anyway these rebels or at least this cell of them led by Irene Tsu decide to kidnap the Japanese Ambassador's son to call attention to their prisoners. As we've seen many times, mostly in the Middle East, they'll kill the kid and Niven who was with him at the time unless their comrades are released from prison.

Niven who also appropriates the rank of major in this film as well is actually forced to become the hero he's told Ando he was. He never got that chance in Separate Tables.

I think this might have been aimed at the kiddie market, but it's way too bloody and violent for that. Niven already did that with Please Don't Eat The Daisies and he would do a couple of films for Disney Studios which were certainly better suited than Paper Tiger.

Still it's decently entertaining, but not for the little ones.

PAPER TIGER is an intriguing little comedy thriller with an unusual storyline. The film as a whole has a number of diverse ingredients which gel together quite well and lead up to a satisfying whole. It's entirely forgotten these days, despite the starring roles and the presence of Hollywood director Ken Annakin (SWISS FAMILY ROBINSON), which is a bit of a shame.

David Niven nails his character just right in playing a Walter Mitty type who regales his associates with stories of derring-do in the war (the flashback scenes are very funny). He travels to a made-up Far Eastern country to become English tutor to a Japanese ambassador, and the film chronicles their friendship. Ando, the child actor, stars in his only screen role and is very endearing, but all eyes are on the excellent Toshiro Mifune playing his father. I noted that Mifune nearly got his son kidnapped in Kurosawa's HIGH & LOW, well it really does happen here!

The film has a fairly slow first half although the second half picks up with all manner of terrorist activities and some choppy action. The latter scenes with Niven and Ando are very well handled and the film narrowly avoids being overly sentimental, remaining funny instead. The Malaysian locations standing in for the made-up country are fun and Hardy Kruger is great as a reporter. Overall, PAPER TIGER is a fun, warming little thriller with Niven on top form.