Küss mich, Frosch (2000) Online

In order to make the story of The Frog Prince into a film, a lot of embellishment is necessary. This film has various delightful nuances on the main theme. It is almost worth watching simply for the opening scenes with beautiful, orthodox camera work. From the introduction, it develops a typical fairy-tale style to narrate the background of the main plot. After that, there is again a complete change of pace as Anja Knauer gives a lively portrayal of Anna, a 16-year-old schoolgirl, somewhat reminiscent of Bonnie Bianca's rendering of Cindy Cardone in Cenerentola '80. Kevin Leisner puts in a good, realistic performance as her younger brother, Raoul, as does Rita Russek as her mother. Matthias Schweighöfer puts in an amusing performance as Prince Dietbert, both in the past and in the present. Rufus Beck, as the magician Gorm, adds in further changes of pace and texture, especially in the shop scenes. There is even a singing and dancing scene, and an exciting finish with unexpected twists.

The one scene that does not come across well is the fencing, partly because it is overdone and does not fit the characters so well, and partly because it was too obvious what was going to happen.

The enjoyable tale, the variety of scenes, characters and atmosphere, the fast pace, the good camera work, and the convincing acting all go into making this a film which my whole family thoroughly enjoyed.