I saw the mini-series when it first aired on TV back around 1980. It was a huge event – everyone watched it each night for the better part of a week. Recently I had a chance to view parts of it again. And I have two comments.
What I saw of it was extremely loyal to the book and well-done in almost every important respect.
I want to STRANGLE Richard Chamberlain and shoot whoever cast him in this film, because I could not stand him as Blackthorn. I mean, my Og! Richard Simmons could have been more believable. He elevates bad acting to a new plateau, achieving hitherto-unheard of heights of sucktitude. And thereby effectively destroys what could otherwise have been a real work of art.
I think I was in 3rd or 4th grade when the miniseries came out, and yeah, I read the novel for the first time when I was in single digits, agewise. A lot of it went over my head, but it instilled in me a great fascination with and respect for Japanese culture that has lasted a lifetime. I have since reread it several times and still find it enthralling. I also liked Richard Chamberlain, so there’s no accounting for taste.
Shogun was always one of my Dad’s favorite books, so when I was a kid I always dreaded Shogun coming on TV, I saw it multiple times as a kid. I have since grown to like it now that I am not 7 and can understand what’s going on. I read Shogun a few years ago, at a very low period in my life and Toranaga was very instrumental in pulling myself out of it because I admired his character so much as he didn’t have a scratch of self-pity.
I loved Tai Pan and Noble House. Gai Jin didn’t have the strength of a Dirk Struan or Ian Dunross to fall in love with, no true hardcore hero.
King Rat may be liked so much because it is sort of autobiographical as the character in King Rat is the character he wrote into the books that is basically himself. He was in a prison camp in World War II. The character is also featured in Noble House, as Clavell lived in Hong Kong for quite a while.
Is this about Miyamoto Musashi (as in Go Rin No Sho - Book of Five Rings)? Read five rings when I was into Aikido, but never heard of Musashi… Or have I? He doesn’t wander the land going from dojo to dojo beating whole schools up does he? Families all after him. Big fight round a tree? That kinda thing?
“Shogun” was my introduction to James Clavell, and now I own every single one of the books from the Asian Saga (including “Escape,” which seems to be somewhat debatable as part of the “main” saga).
I’ve never seen any of the films, though.
I think King Rat is one of my favorites because of the locale/content - it’s not as “grand” in scope as the other texts, I suppose - and that’s one of the reasons I like it. It’s very much a contained story to me.
And I loved Whirlwind because it stepped away from what I call mainstream Asian, and it also had my favorite couple - you can probably guess which.
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Actually, I think Clavell did a great deal of research for his Asian Saga (Shogun, Gai-Jin, Tai-Pan, King Rat & Whirlwind). Whether or not he purposely modeled Struan’s on an existing company (Jardine Matheson) has been debated for years.
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you do realize that King Rat was semi-autobiographical??? Clavell was in the Changi prison camp.
I always wondered about the ending. I never pictured King ending up broken at the end like that. I figured he would still be on his game.
That’s all but confirmed in Noble House, when Marlowe is talking talking to Casey about his book, Changi. She goes on some spiel about how authors’ first books are always autobiographical and asks who represents Marlowe in his book, and he says that it’s the hero, the translator.
*Musashi * is definitely not a modern novel. It’s sort of like their Count of Monte Cristo. It is indeed about the legendary swordsman (and the man was very good). While fictional, it does have the outlines of his life, and incporporates many stories of unknown veracity. He does indeed wander the land, challenging various masters and schools. Musashi did write Five Rings, and it’s a very good book, too.
And yes, if the Samurai actually killed themselves off at the rate described in Shogun, there simply wouldn’t have been any left alive.
By the by, Merchants, official status or no, were definitely just after the Samurai at the top. In fact, many of them became Samurai in practice by marrying their children to poor Samurai houses.
Is there any way I could get copies from you? I’ll pay!
When I was a kid, my mom worked at a TV station during the day. We’d get back from school and she’d shove us in a corner of her office to watch an episode while she finished up.
No he got it right. Tokugawa social hiearchy was based ( somewhat ) on Confucian ideals and merchants occupied a relatively low social rung, with artisans ahead of them, but still behind agriculturists. This was based on classic Chinese economic theory which perceived ( quite correctly at the time ) that agrarian land revenue was the engine of the China, whereas merchant trade was a) a minor source of state funds and b) resulted in “inequitable” distribution of resources.
However in terms of actual economic clout that was of course usually completely inverted. By the end of the Tokugawa era the heavy conspicuous consumption required of the samurai class meant that large swaths of them were impoverished and indebted to the lowly merchant class.
Yeah, but I’m not quite willing to pay $60 for something that I’d watch maybe once a year (I’m eager to see it now 'cause I haven’t seen it since I was 8 or 9). And it’s not available for rent that I’ve seen. I don’t have Netflix, either.
If silenus feels that he/she could send me copies I will definitely pay for his/her time and effort. If it turns out that videotapes, copying time and postage would come to ~$60, then I’ll definitely rethink what I’d do.
So…yeah. I’m anxious to see it again, but not enough to add it to my DVD collection or sign up for Netflix. Guess I seemed a bit overly enthusiastic there, didn’t I?
Warriors/Nobles (in ancient Japan, the nobles were on top; the Samurai pretty much took over, though they kept the Nobles around for appearances’ sake
Farmers
Craftsmen
Merchants
Unofficially, the Burakumin were on the bottom. Their lot is very sad is wholly unfair, and frankly continues today. Fortunately, the Burakumin find it easier to hide their background now.
In practice, Craftsmen tended to do better than Farmers, and Merchants were wealthy enough to gain some political power. As long as they were discreet - and sometimes not - they could live very, very well. In any event, the two classes got to be quite mixed. By the 19th century, the Samurai and Merchants more or less merged.
