Shōgun
It is not often I recommend a modern TV show but Shōgun is the exception. Five episodes into a ten episode miniseries and it has lived up to what I hoped it would be: well written and acted, exciting and suspenseful, beautifully shot with amazing costumes and settings that make you feel like it really is in 17th century Japan. The subtitles are a bit distracting as the dialogue is complex and you need to pay attention but that is a minor quibble. It is the first show I can remember looking forward to the next episode being released in a very long time. It is also one of the few examples of a remake of an older show/movie that isn’t a disaster.
I have read James Clavell’s 1152 page book Shogun and I watched the 1980 Shogun miniseries so I know the basic plot but it still is quite enjoyable. It captures the weird dichotomy of Japanese culture, on the one hand beautiful and fascinating while not shying away, at all, from the cold brutality and disregard for life in Japan, where honor can demand the slaughter of an entire family including an infant for a transgression in protocol. Early on a Japanese lord has an English sailor slowly boiled alive. This would carry forward to Japanese behavior in World War II, exhibiting cruelty that seems inhuman to Americans and a fanaticism that led men to fly planes into American ships in kamikaze attacks. It is bizarre to look at modern Japan and the effeminate, weak men that live there and imagine they are the descendants of samurai and kamikaze pilots.
The clash of civilizations is quite good with an English sailor trying to understand the ways of Japan and his own seemingly barbarous behavior continually befuddling the Japanese with the added confusion of a language barrier, while behind the scenes there is plenty of intrigue both between competing Japanese factions vying for power and European powers that seek to control Japan for their own purposes. The Jesuits don’t come across very favorably in the series (or the book as I recall).
Another point in it’s favor, the bitching from historical revisionists demanding to know why there are not black characters in a show set in 17th century Japan, including a bullshit, made-up Japanese proverb and an alleged black Shogun. We wuz samurai and sheeeiiit!
Some of the CGI is a little clunky but it is a big task to create a realistic looking 17th century Japanese city and huge armies of Japanese warriors.
The Critical Drinker agrees:
You shouldn’t pay to watch it but that shouldn’t stop anyone from watching the show if you know how to internet at all. Shōgun is a reminder that it is still possible to make good TV shows and movies.