95. The King And I (1999)

Released the same year as the more successful Anna and the King, this is another attempt from director Richard Rich and Warner Brothers to copy the Disney format, after bringing us the Swan Princess trilogy. And boy, should they have quit while they were behind. On February 1st 2007 The King and I stood at number 95 on the IMDB bottom 100 with an average score of 2.6 out of 10, from 829 votes.

Adapted from the Rodgers and Hammerstein classic of the same name. What’s that I hear turning? The King and I is one of the most famous musicals ever made. Performed on Broadway and around the world thousands of times over the last 55 years. Fans of the original will watch this sugar coated mess aghast at the butchering of a classic. Those who have never seen the story before, will most likely be bored by the string of unimaginative and unfunny clichés trotted out complete with numerous cutesy animal sidekicks for good measure.

The basic story revolves around Anna, a schoolteacher, and the King of Siam. Set in 19th century Siam, Anna has been hired to teach the King’s children English. It explores their cultural differences whilst also telling the subplot of a love story between Prince Chulalongkorn and a slave girl Tuptim. Meanwhile the king’s brother, The Kralahome, is using his evil magical powers to kill the King and Prince so that he can become King. There are substantial differences from the original stories plot and not all of the original songs are used, and those that are don’t feature in exactly the same order. Not to mention the addition of some action sequences.

On it’s own merits The King and I is a weak film. The animation is a mixed bag; at times just fine at others, for want of a better word, clumsy. There is a Saturday morning feeling that doesn’t deserve to make it to the big screen. It certainly doesn’t match up to the standard of other films of its time, such as Mulan or Toy Story 2. The story itself feels like an Aladdin wannabe. It uses all the stock elements of the genre, dastardly magical villain, cute animals, idiot sidekicks, slapstick, and uses them in a paint by numbers style. Thinking about it, maybe the animation was paint by numbers too; would explain the low quality.

No time is spent building up the characters. They remain as two dimensional as the paper they were drawn on. None of the vocal actors performances are memorable, although Martin Vidnovic stands out as a lacklustre imitation of Yul Brynner (the original actor who played the King). There aren’t any bad performances as such, it’s just a bad script. One curious new character is The Kralahome’s stupid henchmen, Master Little, whose running gag involves having all his teeth knocked out. It’s not funny. Neither are the less slapstick gags. All it does is make me want to kick all the other characters teeth out.

Some of the dialogue feels rather incongruous, for instance when Master Little wants revenge on a mischievous monkey he says, “Your time will come monkey, I know torture’. It’s delivered as a light aside, but seems inappropriately weird. Or the odd juxtaposition of the Prince singing a love song whilst practicing his martial arts. For whatever reasons these moments don’t work and it all seems a bit silly. The character scenes are just loosely strung together to accelerate the plot. Once a song ends they have sudden and dramatic shifts in mood, because the story requires it, although they haven’t taken the time to develop it plausibly.

I just need to get this off my chest. Why does every central character need to have a floppy animal wander around behind them, falling over a lot? The English kid has a monkey. Tuptim has a baby elephant. The King has a panther. I was half expecting The Kralahome to have a wisecracking aardvark jump out of a plant pot and perform ‘If My Friends Could See Me Now’.

The songs are one of the stronger points by virtue of having been written by someone more talented. Unfortunately, they feel shoehorned into the shortened running time between character scenes. They also have less charm. A perfect example being the first song, ‘I Whistle a Happy Tune’, which is sung whilst being attacked by sea monsters conjured by The Kralahome. The scene is neither tense nor sweet, and isn’t even drawn very well. It creates a pretty bad impression right from the start.

I know I'm an adult but I should be able to at least sit through this film without the need of narcotics. The first half hour really breaks the viewer, even though it does settle down more through the mid-section, before it's mundane, if not ludicrous, finale. With so many other films of its type available, and better versions of the same story, it quickly sinks to the bottom of the list.

Here’s a little trivia I gleaned from the Wikipedia:
“The possession of anything related to Anna and the King of Siam or The King and I is illegal in Thailand, because of what the Thai government said were historical inaccuracies about the King of Siam.”
I’d have no problem with this particular version being made illegal worldwide, for it’s crimes against taste and entertainment.


So far:
Best film – Ator the Invincible (1984)
Worst film – The King & I (1999)