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.
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.