Post by birchie on Jun 24, 2012 9:45:47 GMT -5
I just wanted to share that I recently got the 5 disc set of Shogun. I enjoyed it as much as I did 30 years ago. Richard Chamberlain is so good in it and the legendary Toshiro Mifune is amazing. I think Richard is very underrated as an actor. I still enjoy his Bourne Identity as much as the newer Matt Damon version and it followed the book better too. But I digress....
The 5th disc in the set contains the special features and was full of wonderful behind the scenes stuff and history. I was surprised to learn that the young Japanese woman, Yoko Shimada who played his love interest/interpreter and Japanese language teacher couldn't speak a word of English and was a last minute substitute when the original actress couldn't do the role. She was extraordinary.
It's a shame that a lot of people today have only seen the horrible 2 hour chopped down version of this great mini-series. It appears on TV occasionally and I cringe when I think that people will think THAT is Shogun! The mini series was quite bold and ahead of it's time. The cultural differences were spectacular to say the least and a lot of that was vividly demonstrated including one of Blackthornes's earliest encounters watching a mans head sliced off with a sword for not bowing!
The other astounding thing about this mini series is that the audience basically experiences it all from Blackthorne's point of view and that includes learning Japanese along with him. It takes a bit of work and commitment but it really gets you hooked into the story. It probably could not be made now as TV viewers have become so lazy...although if they marketed it as a reality show it might work LOL!
Anyway, I highly recommend it. It's about 10 hours of viewing not counting the special features, so it takes 2-3 days, but it's worth it.
On a funny note, after I watched it I called my son to tell him about it. I asked if he remembered a mini series called Shogun and he went on and on and recounted details and said he learned more Japanese from that show than he had as a child when we lived in Hawaii and his best friend was the Japanese boy that lived next door. He would have been about 14 when Shogun was on TV. His friend at that time was a half Japanese boy so he said he remembered it so well because he would go over the his friends house and speak to his mother in Japanese and she asked him how he learned and he told her from Shogun.
Another bit of humor...if you put the captions on your TV on, it will give you captions when the characters speak English but won't translate the Japanese! I actually put them on because some of the Japanese characters were hard to understand when they spoke English! I had to chuckle as it would translate a word of Japanese if it was spoken in a sentence that was primarily English! Very peculiar!
The main character is based on a real life person named William Adams. There is a very interesting Wikipedia page about him. Apparently he is "known as the first and only officially-recognized foreign samurai".
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Adams_%28sailor%29
With so much trash that passes for must see TV these days, Shogun is like an old familiar friend. This and Roots were my favorite mini series. I also loved Winds of War/War and Remembrance a lot. Sue
Forgot to mention that John Rhys-Davies of Indiana Jones fame was also brilliant in this. He says in the special features that he owes his career to Shogun!
The 5th disc in the set contains the special features and was full of wonderful behind the scenes stuff and history. I was surprised to learn that the young Japanese woman, Yoko Shimada who played his love interest/interpreter and Japanese language teacher couldn't speak a word of English and was a last minute substitute when the original actress couldn't do the role. She was extraordinary.
It's a shame that a lot of people today have only seen the horrible 2 hour chopped down version of this great mini-series. It appears on TV occasionally and I cringe when I think that people will think THAT is Shogun! The mini series was quite bold and ahead of it's time. The cultural differences were spectacular to say the least and a lot of that was vividly demonstrated including one of Blackthornes's earliest encounters watching a mans head sliced off with a sword for not bowing!
The other astounding thing about this mini series is that the audience basically experiences it all from Blackthorne's point of view and that includes learning Japanese along with him. It takes a bit of work and commitment but it really gets you hooked into the story. It probably could not be made now as TV viewers have become so lazy...although if they marketed it as a reality show it might work LOL!
Anyway, I highly recommend it. It's about 10 hours of viewing not counting the special features, so it takes 2-3 days, but it's worth it.
On a funny note, after I watched it I called my son to tell him about it. I asked if he remembered a mini series called Shogun and he went on and on and recounted details and said he learned more Japanese from that show than he had as a child when we lived in Hawaii and his best friend was the Japanese boy that lived next door. He would have been about 14 when Shogun was on TV. His friend at that time was a half Japanese boy so he said he remembered it so well because he would go over the his friends house and speak to his mother in Japanese and she asked him how he learned and he told her from Shogun.
Another bit of humor...if you put the captions on your TV on, it will give you captions when the characters speak English but won't translate the Japanese! I actually put them on because some of the Japanese characters were hard to understand when they spoke English! I had to chuckle as it would translate a word of Japanese if it was spoken in a sentence that was primarily English! Very peculiar!
The main character is based on a real life person named William Adams. There is a very interesting Wikipedia page about him. Apparently he is "known as the first and only officially-recognized foreign samurai".
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Adams_%28sailor%29
With so much trash that passes for must see TV these days, Shogun is like an old familiar friend. This and Roots were my favorite mini series. I also loved Winds of War/War and Remembrance a lot. Sue
Forgot to mention that John Rhys-Davies of Indiana Jones fame was also brilliant in this. He says in the special features that he owes his career to Shogun!
