As You Like It in a location called the Forest of Arden. This may be intended as the Ardennes, a forested region covering an area located in southeast Belgium, western Luxembourg and northeastern France, or Arden, Warwickshire, near Shakespeare's home town, which was the ancestral origin of his mother's family—who incidentally were called "Arden". Frederick has usurped the duchy and exiled his older brother, Duke Senior. Duke Senior's daughter, Rosalind, has been permitted to remain at court because she is the closest friend and cousin of Frederick's only child, Celia. Orlando, a young gentleman of the kingdom who at first sight has fallen in
As You Like It (2006 film) prologue defines exactly the moment that Duke Frederick usurps his brother's kingdom, a moment that Shakespeare himself did not. The epilogue deliberately interrupts the closing credits with Rosalind's speech, as the camera pans to see Rosalind's actor, Bryce Dallas Howard, walking to her dressing trailer on the film's location. Despite the cultural transposition, Shakespeare's language and the names of his characters remain the same. The film closely follows Shakespeare's plot. Some critics praised the setting. Others found it useless and irrelevant, since few of the characters are Japanese. The film was released theatrically in Italy on 1 September 2006, in