Why are the Thai authorities so sensitive about Anna and the King?
Late last year, the Thai censorship board banned Hollywood’s latest remake of Anna and the King of Siam, the nineteenth century story of the English school teacher Anna Leonowens and the King of Thailand, then called Siam. Starring Jodie Foster and the Chinese actor Chow Yun-fat, the filming of Anna and the King revealed from the outset the sensitivities of Thai politicians to any slight to the Thai monarchy—either real or imagined. Anna and the King is the fourth film version of the original 1946 stage play and filming was originally to take place in Thailand. The producers bent over backwards to try to ensure that their film did not go the same way as the 1956 musical The King and I starring Yul Brynner and Deborah Kerr, which also was banned and has never been screened in Thailand. To meet possible Thai objections, the script and casting was to be “culturally sensitive”. Thai authorities had complained that The King and I presented the Siamese monarch as a fool and denigrated Thai c
