Paper Tiger

Simple premise of don't pretend to be what you are not. Safe family action film that is quite well acted and with decent cine-photographic shots of the far east ( think might be Hong Kong area ). Well acted with a safe plot. Motto of the story being not to pretend you are something you are not cause it could bite you in the arse..

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.

By this time in his career, debonair British actor David Niven was making films purely for the money. This effort was strangely different from other entries under this guise. The story of a dreamer facing the consequences of his masculine boasts is entertaining, and draws on his performance in Separate Tables.

There is a certain sadness, watching Niven as one of life's losers trying to make amends with one last act of heroism, full of pathos and regret. The film itself is nothing spectacular, but Niven manages to rescue it from oblivion, and credit where credit's due, he almost succeeds.

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.

The story is admittedly very simple: elderly British "Major" Walter Bradbury (David Niven) is engaged by the Japanese ambassador to an unnamed Southeast Asian country, Kagoyama (Toshirô Mifune) as tutor to his enchanting 11-year-old son Koichi (Kazuhito Ando). "Mister Bladbelly" soon wins the reverence of the ever-trusting and perfectly-mannered Koichi by spinning yarns about his heroic wartime exploits that could hardly be further removed from his quiet nonentitous life, but is unexpectedly and severely put to the test when they are both kidnapped by guerrillas.

However simple though, the story is still a good one and it is fantastically well and charmingly acted by all three of the main characters. Anybody who has known a paper tiger, especially the more amiable types who, like Niven, have twinkles in their eyes gently hinting at their harmless fraud, will surely warm to his authentic depiction of one.

Paper Tiger is a gripping story, alternately funny, tense and moving, but above all it is a thoroughly warm-hearted and tenderly told tale of redemption.

Edmund Marlowe, author of Alexander's Choice, a novel of Eton, www.amazon.com/dp/1481222112