Acensbart Excellent but underrated film

Ceticultsot Beautiful, moving film.

Aedonerre I gave this film a 9 out of 10, because it was exactly what I expected it to be.

PiraBit if their story seems completely bonkers, almost like a feverish work of fiction, you ain't heard nothing yet.

MissSimonetta While the Japanese setting seems like more of a gimmick than anything, this 2006 adaptation of As You Like It is treated much too harshly in my opinion.Bryce Dallas is charming and funny as Rosalind, while David Oyelowo is sweet and hilarious as Orlando. The two have excellent chemistry. Romola Garai and Alfred Molina are great as as Celia and Touchstone, the two funniest characters in this version. And Brian Blessed, well, he's always excellent and here he gets the chance to wear samurai armor in the opening. About my only complaint cast-wise is Kevin Kline as Jacques; he does not leave the impact he should and disappears into the forest scenery.The settings and costumes are beautiful, as to be expected from a Branagh Shakespeare production. The comedy is well-done altogether, though once the film is over, it does not leave the impression it should. I don't know, it's missing something that the 1979 Helen Mirren version had. Maybe it's because this version cuts so much of the material out in an attempt to make it more accessible to a mainstream (and presumably young) audience. Worth watching though.

jshoaf I got interested in Western views of Japan in the 19th century a few years ago, so I knew a bit about the milieu Branagh purports to have chosen for his adaptation of Shakespeare's "As you like it." Well, I can see why he went for it: like Elizabethan theater, Kabuki has men playing the roles of women; there is wrestling in the play, so you can have a sumo wrestler; there are notes hung from trees, and that is something the Japanese know how to do properly; and everybody can dance around in gorgeous kimono at the end. Full stop. There is no attempt at all to think about Westerners in Japan, about the Japanese vs. the Elizabethan concept of nature (Arden looked like California to me), and they didn't even bother to get the sumo referee properly dressed. I didn't see anything at all remotely suggesting Yokohama (compare the wonderful scenes in Last Samurai). The colors were wrong. This Japan is as inauthentic as can be.So what? It's a marvelously directed film which kept the plot chugging along in full sight, the wonderful speeches singing, and the dialogue hilarious. The actors were all golden, golden. It was just fun. My son got hooked by seeing Olivier's Henry V as a child, my daughter by Branagh's Much Ado about Nothing. I think I want to be sure a copy of this one is available for my grandson.

Ross This is a very enjoyable movie but with other Branagh Shakespeare that I've seen it isn't perfect. There always seems to be "something" lacking. Much Ado was too fluffy - it has some serious themes that Branagh didn't seem to bring out as was concentrating on the "fun" (the BBC version is the best I've seen so far). Henry V was earthy and all the rest of it but for me it was pale beside the Olivier version. This is not because I dislike Branagh's realistic approach, it was good, but because I just don't think Branagh himself can act well enough for the part - but perhaps it is "personal taste". Love's Labour's Lost was a failure, a bit tedious, and weakly acted at times. I watched the Beeb version just after and learned that this actually is a very witty, very clever great play but I wouldn't have known it from the Branagh musical. I haven't seen the Hamlet yet.Branagh doesn't that I can see act in As You Like It? I was delighted with Kevin Kline's Jaques which he does far better than whoever in the BBC version and he's certainly the star of this play. I was a bit disappointed by Touchstone - wish he had been a more serious character as I think the clowns tend to be - Bolam did it better in the Beeb version. I didn't feel Brian Blessed was right for the banished Duke although OK for the villainous Duke. It was weird that the former looked like a Saxon king whilst the latter was a Japanese equivalent. The Japanese connection was entertaining at times but a bit strange as in spite of the info Branagh has to give at the start to explain the location - there weren't enough Japanese actors to make it work. However, it's a pleasant bit of fantasy with nice acting that should be accessible especially to those who aren't really Shakespeare fans whilst enjoyable if not perfect for those that are!

teacher_tom516 In art there is a thing called suspension of disbelief and sadly this is something that dear old Mr.Branagh utterly forgot or seemingly so, in this sadly misplaced and/or miscast As You Like It. If Branagh had been filming in Japan with Japanese actors like some latter day Kurosawa I'd have understood. If Branagh had been filming in England or America with Asian actors I'd have forgiven him (almost). But here Branagh expects us to be 'transported' to the very European named Forest of Arden with characters like Rosalind, Frederick, Touchstone and Jacques and expects us to believe that this is 19th century Japan with Brian Blessed as a Japanese Duke? WHY? If Mr.Branagh expects us to get caught up in the beauty of the poetry and surely he handles his actors well enough to capture the beauty of the bard's lines why didn't he just finance an audiotape? Why bother making a movie at all, a movie that requires us to suspend disbelief to such an impossible degree that it becomes an effort in and of itself. WHY JAPAN?Why not Renaissance Europe or Bourbon France. There's a Forest of ARDENNES on the border of France, Germany and Belgium while Jacques is obviously a French name and Frederique, Rosalind and Celia can be French while the swain Orlando can be explained away as an Italian courtier. Did he really have to go as far afield as Mejii era Japan to explain that 'all the world's a stage'?And this Japan is an utter parody of the Hollywood mythologizing of Mejii Japan, all Ninjas and Samurais and Sumo wrestlers and Kimonos? I didn't come here to watch Last Samurai thanks very much.--- SPOILER --- And about the Sumo wrestlers and stretching the imagination+suspending disbelief - does Mr.Branagh really expect us to believe that a little shrimp of a man can somehow defeat a massive Japanese sumo wrestler? The two contestants are so unevenly matched that either the big Japanese sumo wrestler was a lousy wrestler to begin with or it was a setup and the Japanese guy was ordered to take a fall. --- SPOILER ---Someone else said it here, it's almost a rip off of his more successful Much Ado About Nothing (set in Napoleonic/Enlightenment Italy though Keanu and Denzel being brothers once more calls into question whether Mr.Branagh understands the concept of 'suspension of disbelief') that it's painful. I agree. I hate to say it but while the lines and the play are pretty and worth seeing/hearing - and I can still recite 'All the World's A Stage' from memory - this movie really is not.