Movie Depictions of Boys Clothes: Paper Tiger (England, 1975-76)

Figure 1.--Ando plays the Japanese Ambassador's son in "Paper Tiger". He wears a wide variety of mostly casual short and long pants outfits.

We only have limited information on this film at this time. Major Bradshaw, the English tutor (David Niven) of a Japanese ambassador's son (Ando) finds he must live up to his greatly exaggerated tales of heroism when the boy is kidnapped by terroists. The film is set somewhere in the far East and was shot in Malaysai. The Major has been hired to educate the Ambassador's son. He is supposed to have had a distinguished and active military service in the British army and been pentioned off due to injury. After the boy is kidnapped the major has to fight properly to return his charge to his father so prooving himself afterall. He acts out his dreams of heroism. This comedy stars David Niven. The boy wears a variety of outfits, mostly casual Japanese style "T" shirts and short and long pants. At the time it was very common for Japanese boys to commonly wear short pants, even in the winter. Ando in this film often appears in lng pants, perhaps because he is not in Japan. He also wears some traditional Japanese garments. Despite the English tutor, he does not wear English clothing. I have not seen this film, but a HBC reader has provided some scenes from the film. The film was directed by Ken Annakin.

Christopher Wagner

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Created: July 21, 2001
Last updated: July 21, 2001