Shogun on FX

Cafe Society
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So FX is coming out today with a huge budget adaptation of “Shogun,” the James Clavell novel, last adapted in 1980.

“Shogun” is absolutely my favorite book of all time and it’s not close. I’m not saying it’s the GREATEST novel of all time, but it’s my favorite, by far. It’s long, epic, has sensational characters, amazing scenes, and has a terrific story that first makes you think it’s going in a tired, cliche direction, but ends up not going in that direction at all. I’ve worn out two copies and my third is just about dead.

The trailers and previews look incredible. I’ll have to subscribe to whatever streaming service it’s on just to get this.

Hiroyuki Sanada is an interesting choice to play Toranaga. I get that he’s a veteran, well known Japanese actor wti hpartial producer credit, but he definitely doesn’t look the part (in fairness, neither did Toshiro Mifune.) Toranaga is described as being a bit thick about the waist, with a broad face and nose, while Sanada is slim. As long as he has the presence, though, he’ll work.

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That book is what first got me interested in going to Japan (which I did for one academic year in 1979-80). Now that I know so much more about Japanese history, especially the era of warring states, the unification under Hideyoshi, and the Tokugawa shogunate (not to mention endless historical dramas on NHK), it is hard to let those facts go to just appreciate the story for what it is. But it’s probably worth a try.

I think Sanada will probably do fine in the role. What Toranaga looked like didn’t seem to matter (as far as I remember) to his role in the story.

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My introduction to Shogun was originally through the interactive fiction game by Infocom (the same folks who made Zork). I played lots of those kinds of games as a kid.

That led me to reading the novel, which I also enjoyed quite a bit. And helped spur my love of Japanese history (I mean just look at my freaking username and avatar for crying out loud).

As @Roderick_Femm alluded to, you can’t get too tied up in the historical accuracy of the story, just enjoy it as a good tale.

Another massive influence on me was the film Heaven and Earth, and I was fascinated with stories of Takeda Shingen since seeing it. I even wrote a huge report on his life in high school as part of an AP class.

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It kinda does, in a way that they may not have time to get into in a miniseries. Toranaga is immensely, brilliantly intelligent and cunning, but he is described as being a man who also understands, when it is appropriate to do so, enjoying life. He is still friends with Naga’s mother, whom he let divorce him to leave the samurai lifestyle, just because she’s fun and a good conversationalist. He enjoys jokes and theatre. When he sees Blackthorne doing a sailor’s dance he insists on being taught how to do it and gets pretty good at it. His appearance is contrasted with his rival, the thin, scowling, joyless Ishido.

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I guess they’ll have to manage this with acting. Although if Sanada has to be jolly and sybaritic, I’m not sure I can picture it.

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I watched it last night and thought it great. So far so good. I do have a couple of nits to pick about appearances, paticularly Blackthorne. It was important in the book that he was blonde. It made him look even more different than the Japanese.

Some events seem to be in different order than the book but it doesn’t really change things. I’ll keep watching as I like seeing different interpretations of a work.

I suppose it’s necessary that after each commercial break they have to give a warning about content, but sheesh, if you know anything at all about the story you know it’s gonna have violence and sex.

Looking forward to how the earthquake scene will be done.

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FWIW, this is what the “real Toranaga” looks like. Here’s Ishido.

I’m going to check it out tonight. I read the book ages ago, I think it’s the longest fiction book I’ve read by page count (mass market paperback about 3 inches thick) though certainly not the hardest or even the longest. I enjoyed it and the show’s reviews are stellar, so I’m somewhat excited.

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My wife and I were lucky enough to be able to see the first two episodes in the theater last week. We loved it. Neither of us have read the book, though it is on my kindle ready to go. I was super impressed with the cinematography, set design, and costumes. We’re really looking forward to the rest of the series.

Every adaption has it’s problems. I feel an actor getting the spirit and motivations of a character correct, is more important than the look of character. Also, I always keep in mind that you can’t tell an identical story in different mediums.

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I’ve read the book three times, the last time was Kindle. Unless things have changed quite recently, the Kindle “Shogun” is VERY poorly formatted with no breaks between scene changes. Example: Two people are discussing something that just happened. The very next line is the inner thoughts of someone else entirely at a different location and time. No space between the two lines.

It’s very jarring, often confusing, takes a long time to get used to it.

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So I’ve watched the first two episodes. My thoughts:

  1. Generally speaking they are true to the book in terms of story so far, bearing in mind that adapting a thousand-page book in ten episodes requires a lot of trimming, especially when Clavell uses a lot of character’s internal thoughts in his writing.

The decision to change the context of Blackthorne’s line “Unless you win” was unnecessary and very ill advised. That is a VERY important moment in the book, contributing to both story and the characterization of Toranaga and Blackthorne, and the way its meaning is changed in the TV show doesn’t really make any sense or contribute in any way to the story. I am baffled by that decision.

  1. The LOOK of the show is flawless. It’s just fantastic.

  2. A lot of character’s names have been slightly changed for some reason.

  3. In terms of the actors:

Hiroyuki Sanada as Toranaga - I’m not delighted so far. At times Sanada has played Toranaga as worried and subdued, and with almost none of Taranaga’s zest for life. The scene with Fuji’s (Fujiko in the book) husband’s outburst took away Toranaga’s quick handling of that situation, making him seem passive. Toranaga, even when he’s in a pickle, should always really be in control. He is a man of brilliant cunning, a master of giving his opponents just enough rope to trip over their own dicks. We’ve seen a bit of this so far but I dislike the way Sanada plays him so far.

Cosmo Jarvis as Blackthorne - Terrific, I’m very pleasantly surprised. Yeah, he should be blonde, but so far he is perfectly playing Blackthorne’s combination of intelligence and violent, explosive hatred.

Anna Sawai as Mariko - Too early to say; they have already (out of necessity) given us a bit more of her motivations that you get this early in the book.

You gotta cast who you gotta cast, I guess, to get the right actor, but… Anna Sawai is one of the most unbelievably beautiful human beings on the planet, and looks younger than her age. Mariko is supposed to be middle aged, and while she is described as attractive, Kiku is supposed to be the amazingly beautiful one. In fact, both Ochiba and Omi’s wife Midori (whom we have not seen that I recall) are specifically described as being very beautiful in a way Mariko is not, while Fujiko is described as being homely, but the actress who plays her is pretty. It’s not really in line with the book, but oh well. Most actors are good looking.

Tadanobu Asano as Kasigi Yabu - I’ll bet you $100 that Asano not only read the book, but that he took detailed notes. Absolutely fantastic. Yabu is cruel, dishonest, full of machismo, and stupidly ambitious, but he is indecisive and keeps folding under the pressure of either Ishido or Toranaga, and Asano just nails it. He couldn’t be a better choice.

Tommy Bastow as Martin Alvito - I thought he was very, very good.

Tokuma Nishioka as Toda Hiro-Matsu - Pretty darned good.

Shinnosuke Abe as Buntaro - In the book Buntaro is described as being a burly beast of a man, which Abe is not, but in the one scene we got with him he got across Buntaro’s impolite nastiness very well.

Hiroto Kanai as Kasini Omi - Good so far. Omi is a really important player in the book, and a lot goes on with him; Clavell goes into his relationship with his wife, with Kiku, his brilliant maneuvering. We’ll see if he gets that kind of screen time.

Nestor Carbonell as Vasco Rodrigues - He’s great in the role. It’s not the hardest role but he looks perfect.

Takehira Hira as Ishido - Looks the part, and he’s a good antagonist so far. Again, I don’t think they’ll have time to get into him. An important point in the book as that Ishido is not of noble birth; he was a peasant, elevated to samurai status by the Taiko, whom he loved dearly. His peasant origin is a sore spot with him, but his dedication to the Taiko means that while most of the other major players are full of shit when they talk about ensuring Yaemon succeeds his father, he REALLY means it; his motivation is very clear.

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I’m going to spoiler this, as it pertains to a scene from the book:

Throughout most of the novel Toranaga is portrayed as the admirable, honorable, stern but sympathetic figure . Ishido is portrayed as the bad guy - coarse, duplicitous, weasely, willing to stoop to any depth to win. But the one scene that stands out to me is when Ishido manages to goad one of Toranaga’s samurai into almost drawing on him. And Ishido is absolutely calm, utterly content to die because he knows that will result in Toranaga’s death as well and secure the succession. Toranaga is arguably the actual bad guy in all of this - he’s an ambitious would-be-autocrat looking to engineer a coup. Ishido is the faithful servant willing to do whatever he has to to protect his ward. It really is superior writing.

Shogun is maybe not quite my favorite novel, but it is wayyyy up there. I thought the 1980 miniseries for all it’s flaws was excellent, particularly in the context of being made in 1980. I haven’t yet started this one, because I think I might want to binge it when it is done. But I’m looking forward to it and I am watching this thread because spoilers aren’t exactly a concern :wink:.

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I agree with your reading here, Tamerlane.

[SPOILER]Toranaga is the PROTAGONIST. He isn’t really a HERO. He is likeable, and Ishido isn’t, but Toranaga is absolutely, positively in it for his own power and glory… and Ishido knows it. He’s on to Toranaga since before the book even begins. Toranaga has a lot of people fooled a lot of the time, but Ishido is never fooled for a moment.

Of course, Clavell’s masterstroke in this novel is that at first you think Blackthorne is the protagonist. As it turns out, he most definitely is not. Blackthorne isn’t even in second place.[/SPOILER]

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Watched the first episode last night. I liked it a lot, but the decision for extremely shallow depth of field in some scenes is a distracting choice by the cinematographer.

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I read the book ages ago and absolutely loved it.

[“its” flaws-- “it’s” is a contraction for “it is”]

When this series was running back then*, a group of us at work were watching it every night and discussing the story at length the next day. In lieu of working, mostly. Not to mention using the basic Japanese that we were learning along with Blackthorne (Richard Chamberlain in his prime).

* How can that be 44 years ago?? I was already an adult then, FFS.

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Haven’t read the books or seen the original mini-series, but passingly familiar enough with Japanese history that the name Toranaga twigged a memory (“hey, wasn’t the last shogunate something like that” - actually Tokugawa).

The series is visually stunning for sure. Since I don’t have pre-conceptions from the book, the look of the actors doesn’t bother me (although I do agree with @RickJay that “Anna Sawai is one of the most unbelievably beautiful human beings on the planet, and looks younger than her age.” - so if she’s supposed to be just regular attractive, then they failed there). The acting, I think, is good overall, although the actor playing the local lord guy who first finds the Erasmus and tries to keep it, then falls trying to rescue Rodriques seems to be playing the lick-spittle windsock just a little too obviously.

TLDR: It’s got me hooked and I’ll be watching.

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Unfortunately this show made go back to read the book again, which being as long as it is has tied up my time. One reason why is the novel does not falter. Sometimes with a long novel you get to a point where you feel that you can skip some parts, but Shōgun moves the story along the whole time.

Anyway, back to the series. The first two episodes have been good and I thought they did a good job of condensing a number of events to get you more quickly into the politics surrounding the story. As everyone has mentioned the production is top notch and it is great that at least so far, it is about 90% in Japanese (I did not count so I may be exaggerating a bit). Not only that, they are using mostly courtly or rather polite Japanese, not what you would hear in current modern conversation. I feel they did not do a great job at showing what other languages Blackthorne is speaking. Mostly it is Portuguese, but there is also Spanish, Dutch and English. Maybe they could have done some words here and there to clue the viewer in, but I know it is a difficult task. It is mentioned in passing at the beginning of the series though and a few other places so it is not completely lost.

As to the look of the actors, a lot of what is described in the book is from the Blackthorne’s point of view, so who he thought was attractive or unattractive was more likely due to his biases. Yes I don’t think they necessarily match the book in other ways, but as long as they don’t deviate really far I think it is fine and my head image of them I am sure will change after I finish watching the series.

I have recognized some of the Japanese actors from other works, but the one I could not place was Takehiro Hira who plays Ishido. I had to look him up to realize that I saw him last year in the Film Gran Turismo.

So far so good…

//i\\

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I’m enjoying it so far. I loved the 1980 miniseries so much that I am going to reserve judgment until I’ve seen a few more episodes of this one. Of course, the effects are going to be better than the 44-year-old series, and they are indeed impressive.

I like the quiet, tension-filled debates and conversations among the principal characters more than the crowded action scenes.

The voice of Cosmo Jarvis/Blackthorn is deep and melodious. Reminds me a whole lot of the late great Richard Burton.

Well, this is Shakespeare’s time, after all. :wink:

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I do realize that it is Shakespeare’s time, my point though is that in Japanese you have three major types of language which use different expressions and also different words. Superior to Inferior, Inferior to Superior and Equal to Equal. For the most part they are using the most polite version of Japanese, except when it is warranted, like Ishido talking to Toranaga in a deliberately insulting way, without actually using insulting words. This is the type of nuance that is great to see, and could have been toned down in order to make it more accessible, but they did not. It is probably one the reasons that the show is also being well received in Japan.

//i\\

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Your knowledge of the subtleties of the Japanese language (both ancient and modern) is way over my head, and I appreciate you sharing these details. I love this stuff.

Speaking of subtlety, I guess my wink emoji was too subtle for the occasion…

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I definitely got the impression that he was at least speaking Dutch and Portuguese; he was on a Dutch ship, and the rest of his crew put him forth as their speaker since he was the one guy who could speak Portuguese. And of course since he’s English you know he can speak that, though I’m not sure that they made it explicit that he was speaking it. (Though you could assume that he might have naturally switched to it during some of his exclamations, it was never made clear.)

I got the impression that when he spoke to Rodrigues, they were speaking in Portuguese, because I don’t recall Rodrigues remarking that Blackthorne could speak in Spanish. If they were supposed to be speaking that, they missed the mark. (Or maybe I missed that as part of the exchange.)

I feel like language was brought up when it was important to the plot, but otherwise not given too much attention, which is just fine to me. That’s how a story should be told; when details don’t matter, don’t bog the audience down in them.

I can speak Japanese, but I don’t think I’m that great at it. Just a few years of study in high school and I rarely use it. I was confused by some of the language; it seemed close but not quite right to me. But I was taught modern day speech, and if that was some approximation of 17th century court Japanese, no wonder! I appreciate you pointing this out. :slight_smile: