Anna and the King (film)
From AwardAnnals
| This creative work has a long or truncated description. Please review the creative work guidelines concerning descriptions and edit down or replace the description. |
 | |
| Director(s) | Andy Tennant |
|---|---|
| Distributor | 20th Century Fox |
| What’s a director to do? Andy Tennant’s previous film was the highly enjoyable Cinderella romance Ever After, which vanished from theaters and became a video hit. Then Tennant made this gorgeous, nonmusical version of Anna and the King, and once again felt the sting of box-office failure. Both films deserved better, and this Anna is certain to eventually find the appreciative audience that eluded it in theaters. In many ways, this delightful costume romance transcends the latter-day quaintness of The King and I to offer a more lavish… | |
Reviews
Amazon.com
What’s a director to do? Andy Tennant’s previous film was the highly enjoyable Cinderella romance Ever After, which vanished from theaters and became a video hit. Then Tennant made this gorgeous, nonmusical version of Anna and the King, and once again felt the sting of box-office failure. Both films deserved better, and this Anna is certain to eventually find the appreciative audience that eluded it in theaters. In many ways, this delightful costume romance transcends the latter-day quaintness of The King and I to offer a more lavish and rewarding version of the story of Anna Leonowens, based on her diaries and first told in Margaret Landon’s 1944 novel.
In an otherwise admirable performance (although many felt her miscast), Jodie Foster struggles with her Victorian accent as Anna, the grieving widow who arrives in Siam in 1860 with her young son. Having accepted a post as tutor for the many children of the polygamous King Mongkut (Chow Yun-Fat), Anna finds herself drawn to the progressive monarch, whose passions swirl in a turbulent political climate. If the chemistry isn’t entirely there, this culture clash still has plenty of regal charm, and Luciana Arrighi’s production design is appropriately magnificent. Humor and politics are given equal measure, and Chow Yun-Fat is arguably the most endearing king to date—powerful yet tender, forceful but anguished by the heavier burdens of leadership. Bai Ling’s intense performance as the tragic lover Tuptim adds emotional depth to one of the most underrated films of 1999. —Jeff Shannon
Barnes and Noble
Anna and the King is the third film to chronicle the adventures of British governess Anna Leonowens in 19th-century Siam, and it is far and away the most picturesque. Gorgeous location photography lends verisimilitude to the dreamily exotic setting and by-now-familiar story. Jodie Foster makes a placidly beautiful yet passionate Anna, who accepts the job of teaching the 58 children sired by Siam’s King Mongkut (Hong Kong action star Chow Yun-Fat) and immediately finds herself locked in a battle of wills with the potentate. Director Andy Tennant draws repeated comparisons between Eastern and Western philosophies, and he sharply delineates Mongkut’s dilemma: The king knows times are changing and wants his children to be equipped to cope with those changes, yet he remains strangely unwilling to jettison beliefs and traditions that have governed his people’s behavior for countless centuries. Neither Anna and the King of Siam (1948) nor The King and I (1956) deal with political intrigue and physical danger as specifically as this adaptation of the tale. But it is those elements, along with the fine performances of Foster and Chow, that make Anna and the King such a rousing success and, in many ways, the best of the three versions.
Ed Hulse
Find this film
Related works
Anna and the King: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack
George Fenton delivers on his soundtrack for Anna and the King with an instrumental score that deftly mixes sweeping orchestrations with ethnic percussion. The main theme “Arrival at the Palace” begins with a very exotic violin solo that quickly blossoms into an epic orchestral movement seemingly ready to crescendo at a moment’s notice (and it does!). Shorter cues such as “Letter of the Week” and “The House” are passages that perfectly convey the movie’s exoticism and its melancholic moods. Throughout, Fenton’s music seems to balance between excitement and…
