Rating: 
Summary: Flawless and memorable musical
Review: Anna, a widowed schoolteacher, takes the job of teaching the children of the King of Siam. Several things ensue: a battle of wills between Anna and the King, that eventually turns into mutual respect, admiration, and possible-but-unrequited romance; the children learn and flourish; the King grows in knowledge and wisdom; Anna goes a long way toward healing her grief.
I am not generally a fan of musicals, but four factors make this movie great:
1. While Yul Brunner, as the King, never was a great musical talent, he defined this role for most viewers, and his career was, at least partially, made and defined by it. He radiates pride, power, style, grace, intelligence, confidence, respect, a demand for respect, and a definite touch of arrogance. His fluidity of movement reminded me of a friend of mine, who has a black belt in Aikido and never falters or stumbles or wastes a movement. Few actors or actresses had as much stage presence as did Yul Brunner in this film.
2. Deborah Kerr, as Anna, starts the film looking composed, guarded, by-the-book, closed, proper, and elegant. As Anna grows, and heals, she blossoms into a worthy adversary to, and companion for, the King. Kerr accepts the challenge to match Brunner, eye-to-eye, and does it, calmly, quietly, and definitively.
3. The music fits the film and the story perfectly, with several memorable songs, most notably, "Shall We Dance?" (an invitation mixed with a challenge) and "Hello, Young Lovers".
4. The setting is quite exotic and colorful. I do not, and cannot, know how authentic it is.
What made me want to review this now is that a production of "The King and I" came to town, and I recalled the film as vividly as if I had seen it yesterday, when it has actually been about five years.
Rating: 
Summary: Disapointing DVD of Outstanding Musical
Review: The King and I is a great musical. Unfortunately, this DVD does not include a number of the songs (see other reviews) that made The King and I such a great musical. In addition, it is in cinamascope wide screen, which even on a 16:9 ratio TV gives a relatively small picture (it fills only about half of the screen).
Were it not for these two faults, I would have rated it 5 stars, since everyone sang and acted very well, and the scenery & costumes were excellent.
Rating:
Summary: "Shall We Dance?" "He'll Always Need Your Love" Classic.
Review: This 1956 Rodgers & Hammerstein musical based on the film starring Rex Harrison won Yul Brynner ("The Ten Commandments", "The Magnificent Seven", etc.) the Oscar for Best Actor. This movie features some of the world's best loved songs ("Hello, Young Lovers", "He'll Always Need Your Love" "Getting To Know You" and of course, "Shall We Dance?"). Deborah Kerr plays Anna Leanowens, a widow with a young son who goes to Siam in 1862 to tutor the king's (Yul Brynner, in a comic-serious performance which earned him the Best Actor Oscar) children. Based on a true story. This film is hilarious, serious and packed with fun for the whole family. Rated G.
Rating: 
Summary: Siamese culture in the movie
Review: In Siamese collectivistic culture, especially at that time of period (1862), I suppose one of the biggest damaging cultural stereotypes is about Thais having conservative views. The movie artistically uses its scenes to show us this cultural stereotype. The scene in which King's children are being taught geography is a good example for this damaging stereotype of Thai culture at that time. Ethnocentrism, parochialism, and the lack of scientific knowledge of Siamese people are all shown with the map and the lecture of the Siamese lady (an unscientific map and the comparison between the King of Siam and the King of Burma): "Siam is the biggest and richest country in the world". However, it doesn't mean that Siamese people can't be scientific or they can't learn sciences. The hierarchy in Asian country doesn't give the people freedom, but on the other hand, it makes the country, politics, and culture follow the traditional value. In fact, the true historical King Rama IV who was really a man of Renaissance, he knew several Western languages and studied political science, hard sciences, western cultures, and colonialism. He wanted to bring Siam into the Modern world. In this situation, there appeared an advantage in Siamese culture. It is that the hierarchy in Siam played a very important role to keep the country's society and its political situation stable for Thailand to modernize. In general, I think beside the love story and the music, cultural issues are also interesting aspects of the movie.
Rating:
Summary: Great Movie; DVD *not* Anamorphic
Review: I confess I only chapter-skipped through this DVD. After I put it on and discovered it is *not* anamorphically formatted (i.e. not specially formatted for wide screen tv's), then I "boycotted" this Fox release by not watching it. Come on, Fox. In 2004 more people own wide screen tvs than ever before. I *hate* popping in a disk that would look gorgeous on my wide screen, only to discover that I must watch it in "square" format with a letterbox. The gorgeous KING AND I deserves a good, anamorphic transfer to DVD. And while you're at it, please send a memo to Universal to release VERTIGO in anamorphic format as well. Yes, there is a large segment of the DVD population who don't care about anamorphic format. But there are also a lot of us who *do*. And I'll stop renting and buying your films until you release them that way.
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