`When a studio has a great idea but no script that works, that's when I get the call," quips Andy Tennant, director of Anna and the King, the $75 million Hollywood epic whose eight-acre set built on the shores of Malaysia is the largest, we are told, ever built for a movie.
Tennant's talent for spinning screenplay straw into box office gold was first spotted in Ever After, a highly unlikely quasi-historical version of Cinderella starring Drew Barrymore, made plausible by Tennant's decision to anchor it firmly in 16th century France (though, this being Hollywood, it included a guest appearance by none other than Leonardo da Vinci). Now comes Anna And The King, a new take on one of the great fifties blockbusters, The King and I - but without the songs.
It must indeed have seemed like a great idea. The King and I had made stars of Deborah Kerr and Yul Brynner and a lot of money for MGM. More interestingly perhaps, it had tentatively addressed the issue of mixed race relationships - as had that other Rodgers and Hammerstein collaboration, South Pacific - a hot potato in the 1950s and still a kid-gloves area today.
The story of the governess and the king is based on a journal written in 1862 by Anna Leonowens, who did indeed run a school in Bangkok's royal palace for the king's 58 children. The King and I, in focussing exclusively on life inside the palace walls, was perhaps truer to Mrs Leonowen's original account. But Tennant was anxious to put King Mongkut into a wider historical context, and "to take the spirit of the conservative agenda of what was going on in Siam at the time - which was to kick everybody out and become isolationist". As a policy it had certainly worked up until then. But Tennant is convinced that it was King Mongkut's belief that in befriending the European superpowers you destroyed them as enemies, that ensured the country's independence - Thailand remains the only country in Indochina never ruled from Europe.
"What we wanted to do was at least show - as the musical certainly does not - that Siam was a very dangerous volatile hotbed in south-east Asia at the time. It was the breadbasket of Asia and everybody coveted it. For the king to navigate through that period and never be colonised was a testament to his political skills. So we took some liberties to illuminate what his belief system was and the drama that he was up against."
It was originally hoped to film Anna And The King in Thailand. But, in a country where the king is still-revered, there were always going to be problems, particularly when "liberties" were being taken with the country's history, however worthy the motive.
"They are still so offended by The King and I and the depiction of their king by Yul Brynner that they almost wouldn't even meet with us. But when they started reading the script and saw that this was not the buffoonish caricature that Brynner was, they began to flirt with the idea. But ultimately any time we showed the king as being human, and being a man, they rejected it. In the end we ran out of time and patience. We were going to make the movie anyway, and they knew it. But it would have just been much simpler and I think to our mutual benefit had we been able to shoot in Thailand."
Chow Yun-Fat brings to the role of King Mongkut all the charisma and stature of the Hong Kong megastar that he is (if you have never seen him, prepare to be impressed), matched by Jodie Foster's equally impressive Anna, complete with a Deborah Kerr accent that is totally convincing. Powerful characters need powerful actors and Tennant knew that the film would stand or fall on the truth of that central relationship.
"I felt that my marching orders were, get the story, get the characters, get those people to work and the rest of it will work. Every day, for me to keep my eye on the ball, it was their relationship and their love story. And at the end of the day, no matter how many elephants you have, and how many bridges you blow up and how many sets you build, if that scene at the end with the two of them dancing together doesn't break your heart then I've failed."
Unlike the majority of young film-makers today, Tennant's training was in theatre and his mentors, he says, are Moliere and Shakespeare rather than Corman and Spielberg. He worked closely with Jodie Foster on the script - not only the language but content - and as a former actor himself his innate understanding bears fruit in the universally fine performances he gets from his cast, who range from the king's children to the English ambassador, played by veteran English actor Geoffrey Palmer.
Although Andy Tennant hasn't personally been told of any official ban, he says he does not believe the film will ever be shown in Thailand. "I have never met such a fear-based society in all my life and I don't think that they will allow this movie. Which is unfortunate because even King Mongkut back in 1862 was saying there was nothing to fear from the West and it's as if they haven't learnt a thing."
Anna and the King is on general release