Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon

*As always, my review assumes that you're familiar with the movie. Consider this a blanket spoiler alert.*

What's different

Very little was altered from Jane Austen's source material for this adaptation, aside from the addition of martial arts — just kidding, obviously everything is different, it's a fucking martial arts movie fer godssakes.

I wanted to review this movie because the director, Ang Lee, is often quoted comparing it to Sense and Sensibility, which he also directed (the 1995 Emma Thompson adaptation). In Lee's own words:

"At the core, my movies are a lot alike, and I see this film as Sense and Sensibility with martial arts. There's a 'sensibility', a passionate, frantic force; if you go overboard it can be destructive. Then, there is 'sense' - restraint, social code, obedience, repression. My films always seem to be about how these conflicts resolve themselves." Source

 Is Ang Lee trolling us? I'm going to try real real hard to take this claim seriously and suss out the similarities.

I spent way too much time on this.

Kandukondain Kandukondain

Characters

Mrs. Dashwood — Padma
Elinor — Sowmya
Marianne — Meenakshi/Meenu
Willoughby — Srikanth/Srika
Edward — Manohar
Brandon — Bala

What's different

Kollywood's take on Sense and Sensibility is significantly altered, both to modernize it and to make it more appealing and relatable to Indian audiences. (Kollywood refers to the Tamil-language film industry based in Chennai; Bollywood refers to the Hindi-language film industry based in Mumbai.)

I think it might be easier to list the things that are the same. Like in the book, there are three sisters being raised by their widowed mother. The eldest daughter is practical and dependable, while the middle daughter reads too much poetry and speaks her mind. They each want something different out of a relationship, but they both find love. The family experiences financial hardship following the death of their patriarch... And now I'm out of similarities, aside from small details like Bala being a veteran and Meenu hurting her ankle.

Is it a Sense and Sensibility adaptation if no one carries Marianne?

Sense and Sensibility (1995)

What's different

This was my first ever viewing of the popular and star-studded 1995 adaptation, and I went into it with high hopes. Obviously, a lot has been changed from the book to keep the movie under three hours, so I'll try not to get too sidetracked cataloging all the minor differences. Besides, there are plenty of major differences to discuss!

Elinor and Marianne seem fundamentally changed, though I will say that the change makes both of them more likeable. Elinor is more emotional and prone to outbursts, while Marianne handles her emotions surprisingly well throughout. They don't take on each other's personalities, but they're closer to meeting in the middle than ever before. For example, when Willoughby rejects Marianne definitively, Elinor is in a hurry to get back home to Barton, but Marianne seems fine where she is and is handling everything quite well after one afternoon of sobbing into her pillow. And when the news about Edward's engagement to Lucy finally comes out, Marianne doesn't regret how self-absorbed she's been while Elinor has also been suffering, at least until Elinor yells at her for it.

Other characters have more minor differences from the novel. Edward is way too smooth, though when you're played by Hugh Grant, how can you be anything else. Willoughby is super fake. He shows up with a half-assed bouquet of wildflowers that he plays off as thoughtful, and he carries a tiny book of Shakespeare's sonnets everywhere he goes — yeah, right; you know he only does that to make the ladies swoon.

Edward hands out monogrammed handkerchiefs like candy.

Sense and Sensibility (1981)

What's different

I'm already losing track of the book after two adaptations. I had to look up several things in the text after watching the BBC's second Sense and Sensibility miniseries, and I was surprised at how many of the scenes that felt off to me were actually taken verbatim from Austen. Some things don't translate well from page to screen, and creative liberties are sometimes justified.

As for what was changed for this miniseries, some trends are beginning to appear. The timeline will probably be shortened in every adaptation, but there are a few key points in the story where condensing may be irresistible. In both the 1971 and 1981 adaptations, Colonel Brandon and Willoughby leave for London on the same day; in the book, their departures are over a week apart. In both adaptations, Edward stays at Barton Cottage for one night only; in the book, his visit lasts a week. In both adaptations, the Palmers and the Miss Steeles show up at Barton Park pretty much simultaneously, and the Dashwoods meet them all on the same day; in the book, the Palmers' and the Miss Steeles' visits to Barton Park do not overlap.

Another trend is deleting poor Margaret Dashwood, who may never make it to the screen. Lady Middleton fares a little better since she gets to keep two of her three children in this adaptation, and one of them even appears on screen briefly.

"See, I told you my kids were real."

Sense & Sensibility (1971)

What's different

This 1971 four-part BBC miniseries is fairly faithful to the book, but it does take some liberties. It does away with almost all of the children, for one thing, and the only child who survives (a son of Lady Middleton) never appears on screen. However, I didn't even notice that the youngest Dashwood, Margaret, was missing until halfway through the movie, which just goes to show how useless she is. They also invented a character, a Barton Cottage servant named Mary, who serves tea, bustles about, and keeps the ladies up to date on all the hot goss. She has several lines, including informing the Dashwoods that Mr. Ferrars is married, which is the only line spoken by any servant in the book.

The most altered main character is Edward, who comes across as a true romantic hero in this adaptation. I observed in my review of the book that there was room for improvement by making Edward and Elinor's feelings for each other more obvious, and this miniseries accomplished that by hugely altering the scene in which Elinor informs Edward of Colonel Brandon's offering him the living of Delaford. Instead of Edward turning up while Elinor is writing him a letter, she seeks him out at his new lodgings, which are comically dirty and depressing.