Les 1001 nuits

An ancient King marries a different woman each night and then has her put to death the next morning. His latest wife/potential victim is the beautiful Scheherazade but she comes up with a way to prevent her death. She tells a story to the King each night, causing him to keep her alive to hear the remainder of the story. When she runs out of stories she relies on a genie in a lamp to help her escape.

Not your usual Arabian Nights / 1,001 Nights. There's very little emphasis on the actual 1,001 nights of stories and more on Scheherazade's various escapes from the clutches of the King, largely with the help of a genie in a lamp. To further detour the plot from the legendary tale, the genie lives in the 20th century and is summoned via his TV which he then uses to enter the scene!

As you can see, it's pretty clumsy and haphazard, plot-wise, but it is goodish fun. There's an impishness and non-seriousness about proceedings that propels the film forward and ensures that it's never dull.

This is helped by Catherine Zeta-Jones playing Scheherazade. 20 years old and appearing in her first film, she is quite enchanting.

First part is a somewhat "sleeper" interpretation of the original legendary story. Had to remind myself to keep watching - although all paid off and switched to a balmy rapid pace in the 2nd part, where you have to wake up and keep alert to catch all of the jokes and plays which feast on the UK / middle-eastern switch location theme. Very funny for anyone with knowledge of people from either of these places.

This movie, or pair of movies, has a relatively slow start, but warms up and accelerates to a rip-roaring laughter rate, well worth the patience. I would definitely watch it again if I found it, and would also go get my family to enjoy the fun.

Unless of course you are a hardcore Catherine Zeta-Jones fan and you would like to see her youthful body covered (in descreetly placed) sea shells, or sailing through a storm in a wet shirt, or just like staring at her cleavage which is on display for most of the film.

The fantasy-like element of the film doesn't really come together as it tries to blend a number of themes into one. The result is a poorly dubbed film with actors who look like they would rather be somewhere else, except for Catherine herself.

I enjoyed this movie very much. It was a neat collection of all of the Arabian Nights tales. It was not the best quality but still enjoyable.

Being a Catherine Zeta-Jones fan I enjoyed her role. It was her first movie and I thought she acted very well. Considering the movie had kind of a childish story it was still very mature.

Overall ok film.