Too much of everything

Such a frustrating disappointment

It’s an especially fun movie from a director and cast who are clearly having a good time allowing themselves to let loose.

It is a whirlwind of delight --- attractive actors, stunning couture, spectacular sets and outrageous parties. It's a feast for the eyes. But what really makes this dramedy work is the acting.

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.

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..

Paper Tiger is a harmless adventure movie which tries to cater for juvenile and adult audiences. It is lifted slightly above its station by strong performances from David Niven and Toshiro Mifune. The central theme of what can go wrong if you live your life as one big lie is quite interesting too. It is neither a great movie nor a terrible one: merely a workmanlike, watchable time-filler. Niven plays Major Bradbury, an English gentleman who has got a job in a troubled Far East country tutoring a young and impressionable Japanese boy about western history. He entertains the boy, Koichi (Ando), by spinning him tales of wartime heroism and derring-do. However, all of Bradbury's tales are fanciful lies in which he presents himself as some kind of all-action hero. Koichi and Bradbury are kidnapped by guerillas, and Bradbury soon realises that he must try to live up the heroic stature he has invented for himself in order to help the boy to survive. Toshiro Mifune as the boy's father, a Japenese ambassador, gives a strong, moving and convincing performance. Niven also has his moments, especially when he looks into the mirror and is appalled by the "nothing" of a man he sees staring guiltily back at him near the film's climax. The story itself is interesting, but the handling isn't all that special. The film satisfies itself with being a straight-forward kidnap thriller fit for kids and adults alike, but the themes of real and imagined identity could actually have been explored much more closely and maturely if the target audience was just adults. Still, a family film is what the makers decided to make, and a family film is what they've given us. On that level, this will do quite nicely for a rainy Saturday afternoon - even if you'll have probably forgotten it by Sunday!

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.