Le tigre de papier

Having seen this film as a child in the 1970s I have fond memories of this film.

Watching it now it is very dated.

However, unlike the mass of mediocrity from Hollywood today, it does have a charming story and Niven and Mifune admirably carry the film by their presence.

What I liked

It's a charming film with a lovely story, and is wathable for all the family

David Niven and Toshiro Mifune are both high calibre actors and genuine veterans of WWII as was Hardy Kruger, each for their respective countries.

What I didn't like

Made in the 1970s it's very dated, special effects and 'dubbed' voices into English, all jarring to the modern viewer used to CGI etc

I think this film is a solid 6/10 bearing in mind its age. I've given it a 7 but part of that was for nostalgia.

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.

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 .