Jodie Foster and Chow Yun-Fat star in what is essentially a retelling of the The King and I only without the music.

Jodie Foster is very engaging as Anna, a widow who finds herself teaching children at a palace in Siam. Yun-Fat is the king, a passionate man who finds himself falling for the foreign Anna.

Anna and the King is harmless enough, and it's also a beauty to look at. It just ran a bit too long for me. There were also moments when I had a hard time understanding Yun-Fat's English even though he has a strong screen presence.

Anna and the King was directed by Andy Tennant who made last year's surprisingly delightful Ever After. Tennant certainly excels at making a movie look good, but Anna and the King doesn't run with the greatest of epics, it just falls short. Much of the film seems processed, and as good as the lead actors are individually, they lack the spark and the chemistry to make the romance element work.