Yeah, where the holy hell are they going with this??
By now, I would just think any such bucket “gift” has a head, and have a hireling Eta handle it. 
I agree with this characterization and it does take away from the original character. To me though, it feels like with the amount of time compression that appears to take place, there just isn’t much time for her to show other sides to her. I hope they will before the end, but I doubt it.
//i\\
Her being morose is on screen enough that we could have been spared it for three minutes. Her last scene with Toranaga was pointless. It takes a lot away from the character. In the book she is an absolute juggernaut.
To be honest, the more I think about Episode 7 the less I like it. It’s not logical in a million ways, not the least of which is that you simply cannot march an army right to Ajiro without YABU’S people knowing. Yabu is daimyo of Izu and Ajiro (a real place, and it does have hot springs) is well within it.
Tadanobu Asano is still just absolutely destroying it as Yabu. The guy is a delight to watch and he’s just hitting every correct note as Yabu. It’s a shame we never got the Blackthorne seppuku scene.
I’m guessing it’s a safe guess that this episode also did not exactly follow the book?
Yes, and I did not like it. My least favorite episode. I think this show is getting to far from the book. None of the humor even that was in the book, and how they screwed with Blackthorne’s relationship with what is left of his crew is badly done.
Chapter Eight: The Abyss of Life This episode continues with the departure from the novel, while keeping the outline of it. That was inevitable given that they killed off a character in the previous episode, although not a major one in the novel (Naga kind of stops being mentioned).
They followed it up this time, by killing of a major character this time. In the novel there is one of the generals that rebels in much the same way, and commits sepukku, but it is not Hiromatsu. The change to using him, and not some faceless character, certainly makes it more dramatic especially with the revelation that both him and Toranaga kind of knew it needed to be done. It was clever to use the death of his son as his excuse for not returning to Osaka right away. In the novel, he does not go for “reasons”, so in this series his having an actual acceptable excuse is nice. It does take away from the cleverness and puppet master quality Toranaga has in the book and makes it seem that he is only continuing to resist because of his son, though there are subtle hints in what he says that it was always his plan.
Blackthorne’s second, and only meeting with his men in the book is much longer and serves only to show how much he has changed from what he was when he arrived. There is a complaint from one of the crew that it is his fault that they are in Japan with so few of them still alive, with the exact same words uttered, but it does not result in a death, which comes later in the novel. Although they could have done that scene better, one nice thing they added that was not in the novel, is the subsequent meeting with Yabu, where you truly see the conflict within him, of now no longer being completely foreign in Japan, and at the same time becoming foreign among his own people, essentially not belonging anywhere. This is something that is not really explored that much in the book, so it was nice to see it here.
The chanoyu (tea ceremony) sequence in the novel is much longer and shows a lot more of the preparation that Buntaro has done for it to be perfect. That said, the attention to detail as to how it is performed, with, for example, Mariko turning the bowl before drinking, was great to see…In the novel there is talk during it about committing suicide together since at this point it looks like Toranaga has given up, however, Mariko gives her loyalty to Toranaga as the reason for not doing so, not the hateful words she uses in this episode.
Both the way Toranaga was portrayed and the tea ceremony scene were the ones that bothered me the most in this episode. Just like Mariko is not shown with much joy throughout the series, Buntaro is not shown to have much refinement either, making both characters less fleshed out than in the book. They did keep some very specific elements in, like the one dew drop, but it is not clear that he was the one who placed it. Also, in regards to Toranaga, they did keep that he is selling they idea that he is defeated to everyone, even though it might not be true, but there was not enough shown of how much of it is an act.
In the end the outline of the story at this point is the same, with the death of Ochiba’s sister, the appearance of defeat by Toranaga, the disastrous meeting of Blackthorne and his men, and the ordered return to Osaka of Yabu and Mariko. If I had never read the novel, I think I would have enjoyed it more, but all of that said, the performances, setting and attention to detail continue to be great. In some ways that corrects the Novel by making it more historically accurate, and thus more appealing to the Japanese audience, but in others takes away from the charm of the original work it is based on.
//i\\
Yeah, we are still seemingly headed to the same finish line but not on the same path.
Obviously, Hiro-matsu committing seppuku is a huge departure and is another example of Toranaga not being as clever or resourceful in the show; in the book he’s smart enough to pull off a long con without losing someone that important. He needs Hiro-matsu to keep the others from rebelling, and says so.
There is no equivalent to Blackthorne offering his services to Yabu.
Mariko being mean to Buntaro at the end of the tea ceremony isn’t in the book, and ruins the scene. The book scene is beautiful, maybe the best scene in the book, and Buntaro’s skill and thoughtfulness really touches her. She is very kind and gentle with him and genuinely appreciate his mastery of the ceremony (a chanoyu, as they’d have called it.) The scene in the book is also important in Clavell’s presentation of the Japanese; while Buntaro is a burly meathead of a man, he is very meticulous about his skill in a tea ceremony, and his tea set is his most prized possession (and is actually wildly expensive.) He briefly suggests Mariko sell it to pay their bills and she absolutely refuses, knowing its value to him. Buntaro is an oaf in a lot of ways, yes, but this sort of thing is IMPORTANT to them. What a Japanese and what a European think of as important points of refinement are different. This was a very masculine culture, but to these warriors, it was important to know things like poetry, calligraphy, and flower arrangement; to be entirely unskilled at such things just would have been uncouth to the point of being openly offensive, as if I showed up to work without wearing any pants. I’d have liked to have seen just a couple of scenes of his preparing.
Ishido never outright offers marriage to Ochiba in the book, though she knows he wants her.
The plot changes in general I could accept, and I can see the logic to them. It’s the changes in the characters I dislike. They have Blackthorne and Yabu right, and for the sadly limited time we’ve gotten them some of the others are okay, though we aren’t getting enough Omi; by this point Omi now has his own agenda to kill Yabu. But Mariko is just all wrong, and Toranaga isn’t great.
This is important because - and this is one of the brilliant things about the book - what you end up learning is that Blackthorne isn’t really the protagonist after all. Oh, you THINK he is at first, because he’s the White Guy who knows all kinda of things and he’s brave and heroic and handsome and the ladies like him. But in the end, you find out the novel’s protagonist was Toranaga all along, and the second protagonist was, if anyone… Mariko. Blackthorne is pushed aside; Toranaga has, all along, been using him as a way to dupe his enemies.
They are definitely not putting Blackthorne as the center of the series though. There are many scenes that do not involve him at all, and where he is not even discussed. Like the poetry battle between Toranaga and Mariko. Yes, he is a catalyst, but clearly with the prominence that the other characters have, I do not know that we can see him other than a surrogate for the western viewer, much like he is in the novel.
//i\\
I can vouch as someone who did not: I’m apparently enjoying it more than those of you very familiar with the source material.
That is not an unusual reaction. I saw the movie “The Right Stuff”, enjoyed it very much, then read the book and realized how much had been (necessarily) compressed, altered or omitted in the film. I would not have liked the movie as much if the experiences had been reversed.
I have avoided reading the books of Forrest Gump and The African Queen, because I’m told the movies changed things a lot in the respective novels. I loved the films a lot and don’t want to spoil them.
I’ve read Shogun, but that was several decades ago and my memories of the book are wispy, so if I had the streaming service I could probably watch the current series without too much angst. I’m finding it interesting to follow the discussion here, which among other things is reminding me of how much I’ve forgotten.
I read Shogun at least 3 or 4 times in the late 70s, to the point that on my first visit to Japan some years later I found that I had picked up several Japanese words and phrases from it. I saw the Richard Chamberlain version in the early 80s (cut down to a 2 hour film) and enjoyed it. I hadn’t read the book in at least 20 years, so when I heard there was a new miniseries and saw that the first few chapters were available on my public library website, I thought I’d revisit the book.
And I’d forgotten how much graphic violence it features. Maybe I was tougher when I was younger, but the torture and death scenes that start it off were too much for me.
It’s not that movies/shows can’t be better than the books, of course. “Jaws” is the go-to example for that, and IMHO “The Godfather” is a significant improvement on the book.
Oh yes, I read Jaws and it’s the kind of book you take with you to an airport, or someplace you have to wait around for. Then you leave it if you finished it. The film is a classic, the book was forgettable.
Blade Runner is FAR better than the short story it was based and expanded upon.
I wonder what kind of payment Peter Benchley got for Jaws. Also, he played a cameo in the film, I suppose he would get paid for that.
It made him very wealthy indeed. First of all the book sold well over 5 million copies. Despite being only okayish as a novel (MHO), it was already a massive bestseller well before Spielberg got his hands on it. Selling the movie rights was just a cherry on top.
Moreover it launched a short series of big fat successes, at least monetarily. He wrote the novel and co-wrote the screenplay for The Deep and sold the movie rights to what turned out to be the pretty crap film The Island for a then record of over $2 million after a ferocious bidding war (fascinatingly off-kilter Michael Caine crap, though - for a certain turn of mood it is so bad it’s good).
Never cry for Peter Benchley - he did quite well.
Yes. in the book, and in the mini series the scene is quite touching- more so in the book.
But this version ruins it.
In the African Queen, more or less the major change is just the ending. You can read the book- which is great- and still enjoy the film- I know I did.
Again I offer up a naive viewer perspective:
I experienced it as a powerful scene. His past abuse and past exhibited contempt are shown to be more a defensive posture to her having always rejected him and having held him in contempt from before they were married. Her treating him with kindness in response to his vulnerable demonstration of love would be inconsistent with that. She despises him. Is dutiful but cold to him. And has no reason to spare him from the hurt making that clear causes.
That may not be true to the book but it works.