Review Roundup: INTO THE WOODS Screens Across Asia

Rob Marshall ("Chicago," "Pirates of the Caribbean") helms the long overdue film adaptation of the 1987 Tony Award-winning musical INTO THE WOODS, featuring music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim ("Sweeney Todd," "Assassins") and book--now a moderately revised screenplay--by James Lapine ("Passion," Falsettos").

The film has now passed the $150M mark in worldwide box office, and has been packing cineplexes across Asia.

INTO THE WOODS is a modern twist on the beloved Brothers Grimm fairy tales--predating those familiar themes of the "Shrek" movies-- by intertwining well known plots and exploring the consequences of the featured characters' wishes and personal quests. The film follows Cinderella (Anna Kendrick), Little Red Riding Hood (Lilla Crawford), Jack [and the Beanstalk] (Daniel Huttlestone), and Rapunzel (MacKenzie Mauzy)--all tied together by an original story featuring a childless baker and his wife (James Corden and Emily Blunt, respectively) whose wish is to begin a family, and to break a curse imposed on the couple by the witch (Meryl Streep).

Produced by Marshall, John DeLuca, Marc Platt--who also produced the Broadway phenomenon "Wicked"--and Callum McDougall, INTO THE WOODS, the film, is fast-paced and engaging in its first-three quarters. How to end the film--same as its stage version-- remains its glaring snag.

Let's see what the critics in the Asian region had to say:

Asian Beacon: "Wishes come true, not free."

That's a pithy, level-headed aphorism. And it's ironic, in a way, that Disney-the home of wispy happily-ever-afters and multitudes of wished-upon stars-has lent its name to a musical with that motif woven so tightly into its signature. For Into the Woods makes no bones about telling us just how costly misplaced wishes and dreams can be. Or, in the case of well-placed wishes, how costly it is to pursue them without exercising restraint and caution along the way.

The musical takes it cues from the Brothers Grimm, to be sure. Dark dangers and seductive delights clash and clang throughout. Princes seduce and cheat. Wolves lurk and lure little girls. The good guys fail and fall in sometimes fatal ways.

Yet this is perhaps the most appealingly staged and wonderfully cast piece of musical wisdom you're bound to encounter. As we hear on the song "I Know Things Now," "Even flowers have their dangers/And though scary is exciting/Nice is different than good."

A rendition of Stephen Sondheim's 1987 stage production about tumbled together fairy tales, Into the Woods is whimsical and outlandish, enchanting and thoughtful. By the final curtain it makes it plain that even in a crooked-branch storyland of wicked witches and sumptuous slippers, foolish and selfish behaviors come at a high price. Only hard work and steadfast love, we're told, can heal the heart and set the wrong things of the Woods right once again. Only good examples from parents can help children grow up and do good themselves. Only dads who stick it out can experience the joy their kids can bring.

Philip Cu-Unjieng, Philippine Star: Most avid fans of theater and film would know the premise behind the James Lapine-Stephen Sondheim Broadway musical Into the Woods. How it takes four popular Grimm Brothers fairytales - Cinderella, Jack and the Beanstalk, Rapunzel and Little Red Riding Hood - and expands the characters along with that of a childless Baker and his wife and the local Witch, to spin a wondrous tale about longing, reaching for what one desires and finding that sometimes what we wish for doesn't bring us happiness or fulfillment.

But while the premise may be old news, one may not be ready for how, with a superb ensemble cast and the sure-footed direction of Rob Marshall, we can be treated to a film adaptation that is truly magical, an always engrossing pleasure to watch...

And what a cast! While Meryl Streep as the witch and Emily Blunt as the Baker's wife have garnered accolades and nominations, be prepared for strong performances from the rest of the cast. The children who play Red Riding Hood and Jack are wonderful, and I found my personal favorite to be the unsung James Corden as the Baker. Better known as a stand-up comedian, the British actor who has won a Tony, emerges as the thread that keeps the film grounded with very human frailty, compassion and everyday nobility.

At its core, a fantasy musical about a childless couple and a curse, the adaptation has surprising shafts of delicious humor and tongue-in-cheek interpretations that Marshall has harnessed for our pleasure. I truly loved his staging of the song of the two Princes (Cinderella's and Rapunzel's). With Chris Pine and Billy Magnussen "competing" in the middle of a creek as to who is the more egotistical between them, the song becomes a campy, laughter-filled reflection on how one-dimensional and stereotyped our fairytale princes are always depicted. Similarly, the song between Pine and Blunt is a cheeky treatment of celebrity and adultery.

Boon Chan, The Straits Times: To lift a curse of barrenness cast by the next-door Witch (Meryl Streep), a baker (James Corden) and his wife (Emily Blunt) have to go into the woods and gather four items. Meanwhile, Jack (Daniel Huttlestone) has to sell off his friend, a milky-white cow; Little Red Riding Hood (Lilla Crawford) is off to visit her grandmother; Cinderella (Anna Kendrick) longs to go to the festival; and Rapunzel (MacKenzie Mauzy) is locked away in a tower. Their paths cross in unexpected ways in the forbidding woods. An adaptation of Stephen Sondheim's Tony Award-winning Broadway musical of the same name.

Into The Woods is easily feted composer and lyricist Sondheim's most accessible work. The characters here are all familiar ones from fairy tales we have all grown up with and some of the songs have a nursery-rhyme simplicity, even as he imbues them with his usual wit and depth of feeling.

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