In 1946, Irene Dunne starred in Anna and the King of Siam, the fact-based story of an Englishwoman who, in the 1860s, tutored the royal family of Siam, and got unusually close to the king. Rex Harrison played the King of Siam in that version, and when the story was turned into a Broadway musical, the 1956 film version of The King and I starred Deborah Kerr and Yul Brynner. For this 1999 retelling of the story, Jodie Foster stars as Anna, with Chow Yun-Fat as King Mongkut.