Thai film censors yesterday banned the latest remake of The King and I on the grounds that it is both inaccurate and insulting to the country's deeply revered royal family.

In a scathing ruling that criticised all but 20 minutes of the two and a half hour film, the censors ruled that Anna and the King, which stars Jodie Foster, "has too many scenes which distort history and insult the king".

The king in question is the 19th century King Mongkut, who employed an English governess, Anna Leonowens, played by Foster, to care for his 50-odd children. In contrast to official Thai history, which records that the couple's relationship was formal and distant, the Hollywood film portrays them as having been extremely close.

Anna and the King follows the interpretation of the 1956 film The King and I, which was also banned in Thailand, partly because it showed the king eating with common chopsticks when he should have been using a spoon.

The new film has Chow Yun-Fat, a martial arts heart-throb from Hong Kong, in the role of the king. The board complained that he went even further than Yul Brynner in characterising King Mongkut as a fool manipulated by the wily English governess. "The film-makers have made King Mongkut look like a cowboy who rides on the back of an elephant as if he is in a cowboy movie. In one scene Chow Yun-Fat pushes the king's crown and his portrait down to the floor - that's totally unacceptable," one member of the censorship board said.

Another gripe is that Foster appears more prominently on publicity posters than the king.

The ban is based on a 1930 censorship law which prohibits film-makers from portraying the Thai monarchy in a disrespectful way. Violators of the law face a seven-year prison sentence.

Thai devotion to the royal family continues to this day. Last month the country came to a standstill for the 72nd birthday celebrations of the current king, Bhumibol.

The censors' opposition has not been universally acclaimed in Thailand. Some critics say that the films should be allowed because they do not pretend to be historical fact but are loosely based on Leonowens' two books, The English Governess at the Court of Siam, published in 1870, and the Romance of the Harem, published three years later.

The maker of the film, 20th Century Fox, has 15 days to appeal against the ban, but it is unlikely to succeed. Only the original film version of Leonowens' experiences, made in 1946 and starring Rex Harrison and Irene Dunne, has escaped the censors' axe.

A year ago the authorities prevented Anna and the King from being shot in Thailand. After a rewrite and an unsuccessful appeal, 20th Century Fox was forced to relocate the film to Malaysia.

It is the second time that Hollywood has trodden on Thai sensitivities in less than 12 months. Environmentalists are currently involved in legal action against the makers of The Beach, starring Leonardo diCaprio, for allegedly ruining a sparkling white sand beach while designing the set for the adaptation of Alex Garland's novel of the same name.