Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1 Audience Rating: PG (Parental Guidance Suggested) Binding: DVD Brand: Warner Brothers EAN: 0026359401923 Format: AC-3, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, Dubbed, DVD-Video, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC Label: Hbo Home Video Manufacturer: Hbo Home Video Number Of Items: 1 Publisher: Hbo Home Video Region Code: 1 Release Date: September 25, 2007 Running Time: 127 minutes Sales Rank: 11850 Studio: Hbo Home Video Theatrical Release Date: 2007
Description: Emmy award winner Kenneth Branagh, the man who redefined Shakespeare for a whole new generation with Henry V, Much Ado About Nothing and Hamlet, brings the Bard's most delightful comedy to sensational life! Rosalind is a young woman living in the court of her uncle when she falls in love with Orlando, a young gentleman of the kingdom. When Rosalind is banished, she flees into the forest of Arden disguised as a man...only to encounter Orlando who has also been exiled! But can she win his heart, disguised as she is? With a setting inspired by 19th century Japan and a star-studded cast including Kevin Kline (Dave, A Prairie Home Companion), Bryce Dallas Howard (Spider-Man 3, The Lady In The Water) and Alfred Molina (Spider-Man 2, The Da Vinci Code), AS YOU LIKE IT once again proves that all the world's a stage. Come enjoy!
Amazon.com: 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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Rating: - Folks, there's no such thing as a "gimmick" for Shakespeare...
A point that might apply to every Shakespearean adaptation or appropriation reviewed here at Amazon.com: there is no such thing as "traditional Shakespeare," or "conceptual Shakespeare," or anything else. Shakespeare's plays never had a chance to develop a "tradition." They had their original performance conditions, and then saw immediate alteration and adaptation by the Restoration. Nahum Tate's "happy ending" King Lear, in which Lear lives and Cordelia marries Edgar, held the stage for 150 years. End of story. Tights and codpiece Shakespeare is a late-nineteenth, early and beyond twentieth-century fetish that is just as much of a "gimmick" or "concept" as, say, The Tempest on Mars. Please stop writing things like "I'm a traditionalist, so...." That invariably means, "I like pretty costumes that are vaguely Renaissance-y and actors speaking in RP in such a way as to invoke a Victorian or Edwardian construct ... Read More
Rating: - Interesting
It is a very interesting movie. The movie is good if your looking for something that uses the actual play. Great for school stuff.
Rating: - Functional
Easy on the eye with nice photography and art direction. Strong performances by Blessed and Molina. The Rosalind by Bryce Howard is very pleasant if a bit giggly. Stunning work by Adrian Lester as Oliver De Boys. Would show this version over others in school as the Olivier 1936 version's audio is too difficult and the 1978 BBC production is rather plodding.
Rating: - A movie that proves "all the world's a stage"
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This movie is based on William Shakespeare's romantic comedy play "As You Like It" (circa 1600), one of his greatest comedies.
I feel that this movie catches the essence of the play with director Kenneth Branagh (who also adapted the play to the screen and co-produced) focusing on the main love plot with the other love plots being given some attention. (Branagh had to do this or the movie would be far too long.)
What is the essence of the play and the movie? The essence is to create a situation where everything is real and unreal, false and genuine at the same time. This all occurs in the Forest of Arden where time moves slowly and where the main action of the play and movie takes place.
Who are the main characters in the play and movie? They are as follows:
(1) Duke Senior (Brian Blessed), living in exile in the Forest of Arden.
(2) Frederick ... Read More
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- Folks, there's no such thing as a "gimmick" for Shakespeare...
- Interesting
- A movie that proves "all the world's a stage" 
