Romeo and Juliet influenced Romeo + Juliet

Luhrmann's film keeps Shakespeare's text and moves everything else. The dialogue is the play's, largely uncut in the scenes it keeps; the setting is Verona Beach, a contemporary Latin American coastal city of gang war, television news and Catholic iconography. The translation is worked through to the props: the swords are handguns with SWORD stamped on them as a brand name, so the word can stay in the dialogue. The Chorus becomes a news anchor. It is the clearest modern demonstration that the verse survives outside its period setting.