Watch The Letter for the King For Free

It's no definitive masterpiece but it's damn close.

Don't listen to the negative reviews

Pretty good movie overall. First half was nothing special but it got better as it went along.

There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes

Being a big fan of the book I had great expectations. I could hardly be more disappointed, the movie fails on all levels: The casting: Just about all the characters are badly casted with the exception of Derek de Lint as King of Dagonaut. The best example of the poor casting is Daan Schuurmans as Ridder Bendoe. Don't get me wrong, the actors are mostly the best Holland has to offer but in some horrible way the all seem to be in the wrong places and don't shine like they should. The hair styles and mustaches are baffling.The setting: Very dark and with a lot of the same landscape, whereas in the book there is a wonderful display of all sorts of landscapes with dark and dangerous forests, beautiful rolling landscapes and sunny skies.The script: Although very true to the book it fails to capture the viewer like the book does. The dialogs are downright boring and they fail to tell the story.In all, this movie as turned a beautiful story into a very disappointing movie and seems to miss all the clues as to why the book was so good.

Having read the book as a kid, I was really looking forward to seeing this movie, and because I couldn't watch it immediately, my anticipations were only rising.Checking the list of actors in here, I stumbled upon some bad reactions this movie didn't entirely deserved in my eyes.First of all, this is a film of a children's book, you can't expect all blood and gore. Second of all, like mentioned in one of the reviews above, it's a 2hour movie! You can't expect the characters to get a hold on you the very same way they did in the book you were reading.This movie was more true to the book than Crusade in Jeans (which I really didn't like because they've modernized it so much, that they deleted a main character for the sake of having a leading woman for the leading man), from beginning to end. There was no need to make Piak a girl, or for a deep romance between him and the other knights daughter... This is a book of adventure, go watch romance if you want romance. This was about bravery, not giving up, and dangers among the way.The landscapes, castles and costumes were great, the choice of actors was a bit less good: some actors looked like they loved to be there, just because now they'd be more famous. But others were really well cast and they all looked the part. The reason why I checked this site in the first place, was because I recognized a lot of voices, but not the faces. Congrats to the grime indeed! Things I didn't really like, but I understand why they did is, is the intro: I wanted the movie to start, and instead I got a history lesson! But then I knew the story already. Other movies start like this, like The Golden Compass, and I disliked it all the same. But I can understand people would probably appreciate to know a bit of the setting where the story would be, before it started.The movie rushed a bit at times, for no apparent reason except maybe to save time and keep as much from the book as possible. So yeah, maybe I felt rushed from one scene into the next at times, but it followed the book, so I wasn't too unhappy about it. What I was a bit unhappy about, was a scene in the beginning, where Knight Edwinen's helper just sends him out, without giving him the password that I so loved from the first time I read it (and memorized ;) ), and the scene at the end, where the King doesn't shake his head in disbelieve because he can't understand a word of Tiuri's gibberish, and Tiuri tells him he also memorized the spelling, in case his pronunciation was wrong. So OK, it would have made the movie a bit longer, I know, but for me, I wanted those 2 scenes in there as well.So I'm giving it a 7 out of 10: my childhood memories are mainly in the movie, great costumes, settings, scenes, some great actors and fantastic grime, this movie was everything my memory told me and so it stayed in tact. But the rushing through scenes, the sometimes bad acting and the lacking of the 2 scenes I really wanted to see, made it a 7.

An entertaining movie. I even want to go so far to say it's a "must see". The actors speak like they are in a movie that's taking place in the present time, but that,s something you forget soon. The movie keeps me interested. Like in the book, the surroundings en clothing are perfect. Famous actors in the Netherlands are almost unrecognizable, so the grime(make-up) is good also. Furthermore I want to say that the previous comment is a bit far-fetched. If you look hard in any movie you find some problems en bloopers. With the knowledge of his comment i saw this movie again and stay to my opinion as mentioned above. The book is very old. It's written in the sixties. The movie however can compete with every other.

Mechanical translation from book to celluloid. No heart, no passion. An attempt to quickly earn as much money based on the popularity of the (audio)book. Wrong persons casted for the medieval roles. Love story of 2 scenes and 2 minutes. Friendship in 3 scenes and 3 minutes. Nevertheless - when the endless dragging thru the woods is finished - some beautiful castle pictures. Dark knights with white shields, grey knights with red shields: a film can do better than that. Director and producer should be a bit ashamed to have this film on his record. See "Kruistocht in spijkerbroek" for a much better NL book to film exercise.