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Amazon.co.uk Review
If you think stuffy old Shakespeare could be livened up with some ninjas, Kenneth Branagh (Hamlet, Mary Shelley's Frankenstein) has heard your call. Adapter/director Branagh has set the pastoral comedy As You Like It in feudal Japan, where the characters are still British (they live in a community established by Western merchants) but now have reason to dress up in lush Japanese fabrics and engage in sumo wrestling. Due to a feud between two noble brothers, Rosalind (Bryce Dallas Howard, The Village) is banished and ends up disguised as a man in a nearby forest. There she tests the faith of her beloved (and also banished) Orlando (David Oyelowo, MI-5), who can't recognize her because she looks like a Dickensian ragamuffin.
Meanwhile, a variety of other star-crossed lovers romp around the forest and zen gardens, sparring about love and melancholy. Branagh, never a subtle director, takes every opportunity to squeeze in slapstick and action (like the aforementioned ninjas), but he also keeps the language clear and the movie is beautiful to look at. The strong cast includes Kevin Kline (who previously frolicked in a movie adaptation of A Midsummer Night's Dream), Alfred Molina (Spider-Man 2, Frida), Romola Garai (I Capture the Castle, Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights), and Adrian Lester (Hustle, Love's Labors Lost). --Bret Fetzer
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39 of 40 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Never mind the critics - try it for yourself!,
By
This review is from: As You Like It [DVD] (DVD)
Kenneth Branagh's film of As You Like It received a pretty cool critical reception as I remember. Amazon reviewers don't appear to be overwhelmed either. I came to it with low expectations but enjoyed it far more than I ever hoped I would. Yes - the 19th century Japanese setting is a bit of a problem. It is hardy what one expects to encounter in this play. The (Sumo) wrestling scene is frankly comical - I don't think Shakespeare intended us laugh hysterically at this point! More worryingly, Branagh tries to carry the Japanese setting over into the Forest of Arden. The main problem is that this is one of Shakespeare's most English plays. There are more songs in this play than in any other he wrote, though few of them make it into the film. We only get one verse of Under the Greenwood Tree and that is sung to a faux-Japanese arrangement that I, at least, find too incongruous to swallow. A bit like eating sushi with roast potatoes and gravy! But Shakespeare was a music lover - he knew what he was doing. The songs are an integral part of the play's atmosphere - but not here. However, the famous Pretty Ring Time makes it in by the skin of its teeth. The film ends with a very fizzy and up-beat arrangement of the song - an arrangement which (thankfully) owes more to Lionel Bart than to anything from the Far East. So - that's the bad news. The good news is that the Japanese setting, with its immigrant communities, creates the impression of a "melting-pot" in which all cultures have a right to exist. Thus, the roles of the de Boys brothers are taken by black actors. David Oyelowo's Orlando is fine. And Adrian Lester finds much more in the role of Oliver de Boys that do most actors. The Forest of Arden, for all its Japanese trappings, becomes a kind of Never-Never Land, where identities can change, characters can mutate and everything can be just As You Like It. The other performances are all fine - or, at least, they gave me pleasure. Bryce Dallas Howard is a warm and engaging Rosalind, convincingly boyish in the forest scenes and well able to maintain the important sexual tension between "Ganymede" and Orlando. Her English accent is pretty good as well - though the mask starts to slip in the Epilogue. Brian Blessed plays both Dukes. His Duke Senior is a mellow, mellifluous performance which completely gives the lie to his popular stentorian image. And the small but important role of Adam is entrusted to the safest possible pair of hands, belonging to Richard Briers. Kevin Klein is a serious, introverted Jaques and Alfred Molina does what he can with the severely pruned part of Touchstone. The film isn't perfect. But I was left feeling that certain melancholy happiness which good performances of this play never fail to inspire - a feeling much aided by the final chorus of Pretty Ring Time! I enjoyed the film and I am sure others will too. It is a version to which I will certainly return and I guess it will be many years until we have another film version to match it.
17 of 18 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Well executed and entertaining,
By
This review is from: As You Like It [DVD] (DVD)
I watched 'As You Like It' with a shakespeare novice and fully expected them to hate it. They really enjoyed the film and in fact it opened the world to shakespeare that my friend probably wouldn't have even entertained the idea of before. It is enjoyable and the setting is lovely. I agree with the other reviewer that setting the film in Japan didn't quite sit right. Overall an enjoyable film and a good film for Shakespeare virgins to watch!
20 of 22 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Will you like it?,
This review is from: As You Like It [DVD] (DVD)
This is definitely a film for Shakespeare lovers, but not Japan lovers. As always, Kenneth Brannagh does justice to this great bard, but not unfortunately to Japanese culture. It's an interesting concept, setting this play in a trading enclave in feudal Japan, and may have worked if more was made of it, rather than just alluding to it with predictable and ill-informed cultural cliches. Good Shakespearean preformances by some heavy-weight regulars, but not enough to live up to my expectations of the film's use of its supposed Japanese setting.
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