- published: 04 Aug 2011
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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.
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.