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Concept
Paper Tiger (1975 film)
Summary
Paper Tiger is a 1975 British drama-adventure film starring David Niven and the child actor Kazuhito Ando, who later portrayed Teru Tendou in Ganbaron. The film was based on a novel of the same name by Jack Davies, who also wrote the screenplay.
The title comes from a Chinese expression meaning a person who looks powerful or strong but is in fact ineffectual.
Walter Bradbury (David Niven) is an apparently well-educated, decorated ex-military Englishman. He informs strangers he is the son of a viscount, a Member of Parliament, and a nephew of a general, and walks with a limp and cane which he says is due to crashing in the Le Mans 24-hour race.
A Japanese ambassador to a fictional Asian country ("Kulagong") is attracted to Bradbury's claims of receiving the Military Cross (MC) twice and the Croix de Guerre once during the Second World War and hires Bradbury to tutor to his son, Koichi (played by Kazuhito Ando).
Despite Ambassador Kagoyama's growing skepticism, Bradbury becomes a trusted companion to the impressionable Koichi. Embellished stories concerning his wartime service dominate the relationship of Bradbury and Koichi, including references to multiple regiments of the British Army, not all of which are real, such as the "Brigade of Guards", the Parachute Battalion and "Parachute Commandos". Bradbury describes to Koichi how he single-handedly stormed a German position in France in 1944, how he escaped repeatedly from later German internment, and after the war used his cape to help Queen Elizabeth II cross a puddle, a corruption of the Walter Raleigh aid to Queen Elizabeth in the 16th century. The impressionable Koichi is eager to build on Bradbury's stories.
But some painful truths are revealed after Bradbury and the boy are kidnapped by political terrorists. The Ambassador is forced by the host country to deny the kidnapper's demands, which aim to exchange 65 political prisoners for the lives of Koichi and Bradbury. While imprisoned, an ailing Bradbury reveals to Koichi that his limp is due to polio rather than to wartime service, but nevertheless the two contrive an escape from their hillside prison.
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