Anna and the King

Let the inevitable comparisons to Rodgers and Hammerstein begin. Anna and the King (based on the same story as The King and I) can hold its own against its musical predecessor with the perfectly-cast Jodie Foster and Chow Yun-Fat in the title roles as the strong-headed Victorian schoolteacher and Siamese monarch with whom she spars exasperatingly (but enjoyably) while schooling his vast brood in the ways of the West. More pragmatic and less romanticized, director Andy Tennant (who so successfully reinvented Cinderella in Ever After) makes wise choices in modernizing the familiar narrative (the king is no longer a cliché of Asian backwardness) and replacing the musical's G-rated sensibilities with more sophisticated, intellectual touches of humor, irony and tenderness. Recommended. (R. Blackwelder)