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As You Like It is a 2006 film adapted for the screen and directed by Kenneth Branagh, based on the play of the same name by William Shakespeare. It stars Bryce Dallas Howard as Rosalind, David Oyelowo as Orlando De Boys, Romola Garai as Celia, Adrian Lester as Oliver De Boys, Alfred Molina as Touchstone, Kevin Kline as Jaques, Janet McTeer as Audrey, and Brian Blessed as Duke Frederick and his brother Duke Senior.

The play's setting is relocated from medieval France to a European colony in late 19th century Japan after the Meiji Restoration. It was shot at Shepperton Film Studios and on location at the never-before-filmed gardens of Wakehurst Place. The film is a production of The Shakespeare Film Company, financed by HBO Films. It is Kenneth Branagh's first Shakespearean film shot in a Super 35 format.

Japanese setting[link]

Although the film was not actually made there, Branagh re-imagined the events as taking place in Japan during the late nineteenth century, when many English traders made their homes there - hence the presence of many British actors in lead roles. Duke Senior's court is imagined as a British outpost whose ruler admires Japanese culture; although most of the inhabitants wear European clothes, Duke Senior and his brother both wear Japanese clothes. When the banished characters travel to the Forest of Arden, its inhabitants are played by a mixture of Japanese and Western actors (Phoebe and William are Japanese, Silvius is played as a Westerner who wears Japanese style clothes, and Corin and Audrey are Westerners). The de Boys brothers Orlando and Oliver are played by Black British actors.

Despite the change of setting, the language remains that of Shakespeare's play, the names of the characters are the same, and the original plot is followed closely. Some critics praised the setting, others found it unnecessary and irrelevant, since the majority of the characters are not Japanese.^[1][2]

Branagh also invented a new prologue, in which ninja warriors stage an attack on Duke Senior and his family as they watch a performance of Kabuki theater. By including this scene, Branagh is able to show the exact moment that Duke Frederick usurps his brother's kingdom, something that Shakespeare himself omitted. Later on, Orlando fights not merely a wrestler, but a sumo wrestler. The epilogue features Rosalind giving her speech while the camera pans to see that Bryce Dallas Howard, who plays Rosalind in the film, is walking back to her dressing trailer on the film's location setting.

Release[link]

The film was released theatrically in Italy on September 1 of 2006 and released on Italian DVD on January 23 of 2007. From there it went to theatres in Greece and Hungary.^[3]

In the United States, HBO began airing the film on TV on the evening of August 21, 2007, but it has never had a true theatrical release in the U.S., only occasional one-time showings, and most of these U.S. showings took place after the film's television premiere. It is the only one of Branagh's Shakespeare films to be released directly to television instead of to theatres in the U.S, though it was not the first to have a very limited theatrical release - Branagh's Love's Labour's Lost played in U.S. theatres only in New York City, Los Angeles, and Boston.^[4] In more recent years, Julie Taymor's 2010 film version of Shakespeare's "The Tempest" has also had an extremely limited theatrical release in the U.S. as of November 2011, and as of February 2012, Ralph Fiennes's Coriolanus has not yet had a wide US release, although it opened there in December of 2011.

Branagh's As You Like It received a wide theatrical release in the UK on September 21, 2007, exactly one month after its U.S. cable TV debut. It was also shown at a meeting of the Shakespeare Association of America earlier that year, before making its U.S. TV debut.^[3] More than two years after its release, in January 2009, the film began playing theatres in Mexico.^[3]

The DVD of Branagh's As You Like It was released in the U.S. on September 25, 2007.

Reception[link]

The review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes awards the film a 36% score, based primarily on the British reviews, which soundly panned it.^[5] However, another aggregator, Metacritic, awards it 75%, as it is based largely on the American reviews, which gave it favorable notices.^[6] Many American critics hailed the film as a "comeback" for Branagh's Shakespeare adaptations, which had reached what many considered a low point with Love's Labour's Lost.^[7][8]

A negative U.S. reviewer was film critic Stanley Kauffmann, who had admired Branagh's film versions of Henry V, Much Ado About Nothing, and Hamlet; he blasted the film, saying that he could barely get through it, and that, by giving it such an unusual setting, Branagh seemed to be trying to "apologize" to the viewing audience for the fact that As You Like It was a Shakespeare film.^[9]

Awards[link]

In January 2008 Kevin Kline received a SAG award (Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Television Movie or Miniseries) for his performance in this film, although strictly speaking, the film is not a made-for-television movie; made-for-TV films do not play theatrically in other countries before being released directly to TV in the U.S.; they do so afterwards. This makes Kline the first actor to win a major U.S. award for acting in one of Branagh's Shakespeare films, though some of his others have won critics' awards for the acting in them.

Likewise, Bryce Dallas Howard received a Golden Globe nomination for Best Actress in a Made-for-TV Film or Miniseries, but did not win the award.

Cast[link]

• Sacha Bennett as Frederick's Aide
• Brian Blessed as Duke Frederick / Duke Senior
• Richard Briers as Adam
• Jonathan Broadbent as Duke's Man
• Paul Chan as William
• Romola Garai as Celia
• Bryce Dallas Howard as Rosalind
• Jade Jefferies as Phebe
• Kevin Kline as Jaques
• Youki Yamamoto as Duke Senior Man
• Adrian Lester as Oliver De Boys
• Janet McTeer as Audrey
• Alfred Molina as Touchstone
• David Oyelowo as Orlando De Boys
• Yee Tsou as Charles the Wrestler
• Alex Wyndham as Silvius
• Jimmy Yuill as Corin

References[link]

External links[link]

• As You Like It at the Internet Movie Database
• September 1st 2006 - opening in Italy