"Cantonese Boy" is a song by English new wave band Japan, released in May 1982 as the fourth and final single from their 1981 album Tin Drum.

[1] The song refers to the enlistment of a Cantonese boy to the Chinese Red Army.

[2] "Cantonese Boy" was released with the B-side "Burning Bridges" on the 7-inch single, taken from the band's previous album Gentlemen Take Polaroids.

Reviewing the song for Record Mirror, Sunie Fletcher described it as "a skillful, fluent and textured piece of music" and that as a single "it's a less obvious proposition than its predecessors, "Ghosts" and "Visions of China"", as "its chief shortcoming is the lack of a hook, as they say in the trade, but it's pleasurable listening for all that".

[3] Dave Rimmer for Smash Hits wrote that it is "a good song", but "can't really be counted as much more than a stop-gap measure until the boys in rouge re-unite and pen something new".