Kirpianuscus 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.

Karel Chevalking 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.

John van den Berg 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.

c-i-z-ler This movie is dreadful. I really can not understand why the director is being praised for what he created here.Every scene seems to be rushed, as if there wasn't enough film in the camera. Like when Piak throws Tiuri his sword. Piak doesn't throw it further than a few feet yet when the camera changes its angle, all of a sudden the sword flies another 8 feet. Is it such a bother to just throw that sword a few times more often?And then there are the actors, almost all of them the best Holland has to offer and a few of Germany's great. How come none of these fine actors seem to shine in their parts? Isn't it a big part of the directors work to ensure they do their best?Then there are parts of the book that are altered for no good reason. Why doesn't this film start with Tiuri in the chapel? That would have been a great introduction for the main character. A dim lit chapel, and then the knock on the door and the cry for help. It is easy to convey a bit a drama to that, but it doesn't happen. Vokia is also wounded, no idea why, he wasn't in the book. And it doesn't quite fit either.There are parts that I liked in this movie. The shots of the landscape through which Tiuri goes are pretty good. The actor that plays Jaro does a good job. And when Tiuri meets the lord of the toll I got an emotional response from this performance, even though it doesn't really make sense in light of the book.All in all, I just think it is too bad they didn't put some more effort into this. It could have been something if the makers would have just spend some more time in preparing dramatic effect, storyboard and a decent script.I sincerely hope they don't ruin another great book by Tonke Dragt.A disappointed fan.