De brief voor de koning

Not long ago De Brief voor de koning - A letter for the King - was voted most popular Dutch children's book ever. The story of Tonke Dragt's book takes place in the Middle Ages. Young Tiuri is to become a knight, but as a last task he must stay the night in a church chapel with three other pupils. They must not talk. They must not leave. They must not listen to anybody. Late at night a voice is heard from behind the door. A cry for help! Tiuri is the only one who dares opening the door. Knowing he will not be knighted the morning after, he still goes out and helps this stranger. He must bring a secret letter to the king from a foreign country. But is he up to the task?

The movie De Brief voor de koning stays true to the book and that turns out to be a bad choice. Things that worked fine in the book suddenly seem not enough to turn it into an exciting movie. As a film the story could have used more tension and perhaps more action. I loved the book. But seeing it as a film... As a sort of road movie most of the scenery looked the same. The locations were beautiful though, but the tone of most scenes was rather dark. Only at the end there were scenes filmed in daylight.

But the main flaw of this movie is the casting. Yannick van de Velde (who did very well in In Oranje) is a rather colourless hero. He isn't helped by the dialogue either. It uses polite Medieval sentences which makes it even harder for the audience to live along with his triumphs and disappointments and deprives it from any emotion. To make an audience believe that a young inexperienced boy can complete a dangerous task like Tiuri does, you'd expect the hero to have something extra. But Tiuri isn't extremely smart, strong or charming. He can fight, okay. But he should at least have a dark side - to ignore the rules to win after all when he's outnumbered. How far would he go to complete his task?

His sidekick is Piak, played by Quinten Schram. He's a young actor known from his two Pietje Bell movies. Quinten doesn't have as much screen time as Yannick, but somehow his relationship with Tiuri never comes off the ground. There's hardly a spark between these two and that's a real shame. His haircut looks rather silly.

Being a fan of the book for so many years I've always imagined that Hollywood would take up this story. The way it was done now - with a small Dutch budget - is courageous. But it does not do justice to the quality of the book. Brief voor de Koning is a nice attempt to turn one of the most popular Dutch children's books into a movie. But unlike a similar project like Kruistocht in Spijkerbroek (Crusade in Jeans) - in which the director had the courage to make some remarkable changes in the story to make a good movie translation - this one is a small disappointment. I say small, because it isn't a bad movie and maybe the fact that I'm a big fan of the book is in the way of a truly objective movie judgement. In Holland it turned out to be a huge hit at the box office.

6,5 out of 10

I must apologize to everyone outside The Netherlands for this movie. The book the movie is based on is a famous childrens' book in The Netherlands and is actually quite good.

Let me explain something about movies in the Netherlands: we are a very small country, thus a small audience and therefore small budgets. Not only this, but the Dutch seem to have a very mediocre taste in movies, almost every movie made here is considered to be 'good' by a large audience, and the level of acting and the way things are filmed are judged according to a standard this 'big audience' embraces.

I watched about 15 minutes of this movie then turned it off. It's embarrassing how bad the acting is, the casting is horrible, the costumes are also pretty bad. They killed a good story with poor acting and they changed the story here and there, killing the whole fairylike 'ambiance' the book has.

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.

I do not know the book. so, the opinion about a good or bad adaptation is missing. but , it is obvious than "The letter for the king" is a nice children film. not surprising . each expected ingredient is present. the sacrifice for noble cause, the adventure, the young hero discovering himself, the friendship, the danger, the important mission and, sure, the aura of return . so, a seductive film.

Aimed squarely at a children and young teenage audience, this film from the Netherlands is a reasonable entry into the medieval fantasy genre. A lot of the negative reviews here come from people comparing it to the popular children's book upon which is based, but not having read the book I can say this worked on me on its own. Working with a relatively small budget, it tells the story of young Tiuri (Yannick Van de Velde), who is to become a knight. As a last task he must stay the night in a church chapel with three other pupils, without talking, leaving or listening to anybody. But at night a cry for help is heard from behind the door, and a dying stranger tells Tiuri he must bring a secret letter to the king of a foreign country…So the adventure begins. There are some nice outdoor mountain locations, not filmed in flat Netherlands obviously, but in Scotland, France and Germany.