As You Like It (2006 film)

As You Like It is a 2006 film adapted for the screen by Kenneth Branagh from the Shakespearean play of the same name, and directed by him. It stars Bryce Dallas Howard as Rosalind, David Oyelowo as Orlando De Boys, Romola Garai as Celia, Adrian Lester as Oliver De Boys, Alfred Molina as Touchstone, Kevin Kline as Jaques, Janet McTeer as Audrey, and Brian Blessed as Duke Frederick and his brother Duke Senior.

Although the film was not made in Japan, Branagh reimagines the play there during the late nineteenth century, where many English traders lived. Branagh portrays Duke Seniors court as a British outpost whose ruler admires Japanese culture although most of the inhabitants wear European clothes, Duke Senior and his brother both wear Japanese clothes. Each British lady at the outpost covers her face modestly with a fan, and styles her hair reminiscently Japanese. When the banished characters travel to the Forest of Arden, both Japanese and western actors portray its inhabitants Phoebe and William are Japanese, Corin and Audrey are European, while Silvius is a European who wears Japanese clothes. Black British actors play the de Boys brothers, Orlando and Oliver. When Orlando fights not merely a wrestler, it is indeed a sumo wrestler.Branagh invented a prologue in which ninja warriors attack Duke Seniors family as it attends a performance of Kabuki theatre. Branaghs prologue defines exactly the moment that Duke Frederick usurps his brothers kingdom, a moment that Shakespeare himself did not. ........

Source: Wikipedia