Paper Tiger

Average production values at best. Still somehow entertaining despite many drawbacks. Toshiro Mifune and David Nathan's charisma keeping this afloat. But truly the star of the show is the young actor, Kazuhito Ando, Mifune's son. For some reason watching this kept reminding me of "Space Mountain". For people of a certain age accomplished in suspension of disbelief this is sure to entertain. ( In other words, I enjoyed it).

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 .

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.

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..