{"id":3793,"date":"2009-05-16T04:36:53","date_gmt":"2009-05-15T20:36:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chekyang.com\/musings\/?p=3793"},"modified":"2018-03-14T11:29:06","modified_gmt":"2018-03-14T03:29:06","slug":"the-tudors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/2009\/05\/16\/the-tudors\/","title":{"rendered":"The Tudors"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"blog-tudors-2\"<\/em>The Tudors<\/em><\/a> (2007+)<\/em>. One period of history I\u2019ve been intrigued by is the hundred year old period of power held by the Tudor dynasty in the 15th to 16th century England.<\/p>\n

While this period of history has been well-related in film and TV series in the U.K., I suspect only a fraction of these productions eventually reach Singapore audiences. I don\u2019t think, for starters, that many Singaporeans are that interested in the House of Tudor at all. Just ask any film goer and they\u2019re more likely to be familiar with say major characters in Chinese history told through the countless period dramas, than say Henry VIII or Elizabeth I.<\/p>\n

On my end, I confess I didn\u2019t know very much of the period either. Oh, I saw most of whatever productions were available here: the superb Elizabeth<\/em><\/a> in 1998 starring a relatively unknown Cate Blanchett then and a role she repeated again for the less consistent Elizabeth: The Golden Age<\/em><\/a> in 2007.<\/p>\n

There was also the recent The Other Boleyn Girl<\/em><\/a> last year starring Hollywood hotties Natalie Portman and Scarlett Johansson as Anne and Mary Boleyn sisters respectively, and Eric Bana as Henry VIII. I thought Portman did great as the half-scheming but finally tragic Anne Boleyn, but Johansson \u2013 as delicious as she looks \u2013 was awful as Mary.<\/p>\n

By far though, the series I enjoyed the most was the semi-recent mini-TV series Elizabeth I<\/em><\/a> (picture right) <\/em>which covered the last 25 years of the great queen\u2019s rule. The more than 3 hours film starred an incredible cast, including Helen Mirren, Jeremy Irons and Patrick Malahide \u2013 true British acting greats and not American wannabes play-acting the stiff upper lip.<\/p>\n

The Tudors<\/em> is a BBC TV series I’ve started watching, and is currently in production of its fourth and last season in the U.K., and covers the turbulent years of Henry VIII. I got interested in the series after reading how critically acclaimed the first two seasons of the series was, and the heaps of awards in acting, costume design and cinematography it\u2019d picked up. Each season comprises 8-10 episodes of 55 minutes each \u2013 plenty of space to tell stories and weave in character development properly.<\/p>\n

The show is in one sense lucky because it\u2019s using as material one of the most scandalous, violent, politically charged and important periods of English history. I mean, consider that during this period\u2026<\/p>\n

King Henry VIII had six wives.<\/p>\n

He executed a couple of them.<\/p>\n

He executed a lot of his nobles and advisors.<\/p>\n

A lot of those poor fellows who lost their heads had been accused of high treason.<\/p>\n

Adultery at court was so commonplace I had to create a scoresheet to keep track LOL.<\/p>\n

England and Rome suffered poor relations resulting in the English King being excommunicated by the Pope.<\/p>\n

\"THE<\/p>\n

The series stars the youthful looking Jonathan Rhys Meyers as King Henry VIII, a couple of well-knowns like Sam Neill as the conniving Archbishop Cardinal Wosley and Henry Czerny as the Duke of Norfolk; the rest of the cast of hundreds are actors I haven\u2019t seen in productions before.<\/p>\n

I haven\u2019t gone very far in the series yet though \u2013 not much time in the evenings this couple of days \u2013 and while it\u2019s not (yet) as riveting as Elizabeth I<\/em>, it\u2019s still watchable with stories that are moving along briskly. The series is given a glorious High Definition transfer on blu-ray, and the colors from the locations and costumes pop right out of the plasma TV.<\/p>\n

More notes to come, hopefully.:)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Tudors (2007+). One period of history I\u2019ve been intrigued by is the hundred year old period of power held by the Tudor dynasty in the 15th to 16th century England. While this period of history has been well-related in<\/p>\n

Read More The Tudors<\/span><\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3793","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-at-home","category-entertainment","wpcat-6-id","wpcat-10-id"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3793","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3793"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3793\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3793"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3793"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3793"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}