Shogun (7/10)
Based on James Cavell's best-seller, this was NBC's "big event" for their Fall 1980 season, and while very ambitious, it doesn't live up to its potential. Casting is top-notch, particularly Richard Chamberlain as the protagonist, and a supporting cast including John Rhys-Davies, Vladek Sheybal and Toshiro Mifune as Lord Toranaga. Unfortunatley, Mifune doesn't have a lot of screen time and isn't given much to do -- basically Mifune is on hand because he's the iconic Japanese movie star Toshiro Mifune.
In many ways the series was impressively groundbreaking -- being entirely shot in Japan with a mostly Japanese cast (speaking Japanese dialog). The essential story is terrific, the tale of an English navigator, John Blackthorne (Chamberlain) who is shipwrecked on the Japanese coast, and must contend with the customs of a totally alien society -- and worse, a society where the Jesuit order have gained influence, and view the Protestant Blackthorne as a heretic.
Shogun does effectively portray the enormous culture shock of a 17th century Englishman marooned in a strange land with incomprehensible social mores. The depiction of this culture clash is also respectably balanced, showing the punitive, often-ruthless class system of feudal Japan -- but also the refined aspects of that culture: honor, and respect (and cleanliness!). This is offset by Chamberlain's Blackthorne, who is reared in Christian notions of forgiveness and grace, and the emergent "upward mobility" of Europe's merchant class -- ideas unthinkable in Japan at that time.
Despite the historic "canvas" and location shooting,
Shogun is surprisingly claustrophobic, doesn't have a tenth of the scope of other miniseries of that time, like
Jesus of Nazareth,
Centennial or
Masada. Little of Japan's gorgeous, mountainous landscape is ever glimpsed, and for an "epic" miniseries set in a foreign, war-torn culture, that is really inexcusable. Clavell had enlisted Robert Bolt to write a teleplay in 1975, which unfortunately went unused. Instead the series was adapted by Eric Bercovici (
Hell in the Pacific) and consists of mostly dialog scenes. Action is at a minimum -- and what few action scenes there are have that "made for TV" style (and stuntwork) which was ubiquitous in the late 1970s.
I have not read the book, but the series does not get into the background of how the Jesuits got control in Japan, or to what extent the Church of Rome influenced the local culture, which I'd like to have seen more of. Frustratingly,
Shogun only lightly touches on the attempts of Japanese converts to reconcile their Christian faith with centuries of astringent Japanese customs (many of which are incompatible with the teachings of Jesus Christ -- though not, admittedly, the punitive doctrines practiced by the Catholic Church at the time).
Shogun also -- bafflingly -- dispenses with subtitles (which would have helped enormously). Instead, the dramatic solution was to have the character of Mariko (Blackthrone's translator, and love interest) repeat almost every line of Japanese dialog in English -- which
really slows things down. Narration by Orson Welles fills-in for the scenes in which Miriko is absent, but that doesn't help much, and there are moments in the series which get confusing, owing to so much that the narration needs to explain.
Maurice Jarre's score is dramatically effective, and gives him a chance to show-off his extensive knowledge of Japanese music. However,
Shogun's talky, interior style denies Jarre the chance to indulge any long melodic lines (in contrast to his much-more lush and tuneful score for James Clavell's
Tai-Pan, several years later). His "sea shanty"-like title theme is also very frenetic and borders on goofy -- yet this same theme (when slowed-down and assigned to woodwinds and Japanese instruments) makes for a genuinely beautiful love theme.
The ending is frankly a ripoff -- as Orson Wells' narration tells us that Lord Toranaga went to war and established himself Shogun. Great, but it would have been more satisfying to actually
show us the battle scene (which is not depicted).
Shogun is not without powerful moments, and is overall watchable, but despite its "epic" subject (and epic length) it is long on talk and short on action, and ultimately proves a disappointment. It is also sad to consider Toshiro Mifune was appearing in marginal productions like this and
The Challenge in the 1980s -- but not in
Kagemusha or
Ran.
Shogun, incidentally, was a bomb when shown on Japanese TV.
