Unfortunately this movie only serves to reinforce the negative stereotypes and simplistic views that exist in relation to the reign of King Mongkut and this cartoon must rank as one of the worst films I have ever seen.
The musical "The King And I" is historically misleading and can be perceived by some as culturally negative but at least it gave King Mongkut some admirable qualities and was of an extremely high quality. The Yul Brunner version of this story was at least entertaining and well-performed. Which is more than I can say for this cartoon.
This cartoon seems to depict King Mongkut as an uneducated savage who needs to be trained to behave "normally". Its somewhat amazing that the Thais seemingly don't know how to behave in the cartoon until the English come along. All the good things that King Mongkut achieved for his country and the fact that he actually was a human being seems to be missing from this movie.
And of course Anne Leonowens is perfect in every way and brings just what these "savages" need to be educated in this film.
Plus we now have a bad guy who has magical powers with his rather stereotypical and rather offensive portrayal and a whole lot of assorted animals that can talk and so on. I presume the animals were added to distract from what seems otherwise to be a rather poorly done story.
Ugh...! Stay away from this one
The musical "The King And I" is historically misleading and can be perceived by some as culturally negative but at least it gave King Mongkut some admirable qualities and was of an extremely high quality. The Yul Brunner version of this story was at least entertaining and well-performed. Which is more than I can say for this cartoon.
This cartoon seems to depict King Mongkut as an uneducated savage who needs to be trained to behave "normally". Its somewhat amazing that the Thais seemingly don't know how to behave in the cartoon until the English come along. All the good things that King Mongkut achieved for his country and the fact that he actually was a human being seems to be missing from this movie.
And of course Anne Leonowens is perfect in every way and brings just what these "savages" need to be educated in this film.
Plus we now have a bad guy who has magical powers with his rather stereotypical and rather offensive portrayal and a whole lot of assorted animals that can talk and so on. I presume the animals were added to distract from what seems otherwise to be a rather poorly done story.
Ugh...! Stay away from this one
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