Thoughts on Shogun 2024

Oh yes indeedy….

“As the season dawns,

A TV series springs forth - 

And in the lounge is viewed….”

(Drops mic, exits stage left - Basho would have been impressed - or maybe not….)

My daughter Holly is a huge Disney fan, so much so that she has a subscription to Disney Plus - the magic kingdom’s streaming service. As she is living at home it means that Laurel and I are also able to avail ourselves of the prodigious amount of content they have. When it was announced that a ten part remake of James Clavell’s epic novel of sixteenth century Japan, Shogun, was being made I immediately made plans to watch it when it was launched.

James Clavell’s novel, for those who have not read it, is a fictional retelling of the political machinations in Japan in the years leading up to the Battle of Sekigahara. It features the adventures of an English pilot - John Blackthorne, based on the real life William Adams, as he becomes a samurai

Sure enough, last night the first two episodes dropped and so I spent the evening immersed in world of the samurai with an Englishman thrown in, along with the Portuguese.

Shogun has of course been given the small screen (and indeed, also the big screen) treatment with the TV series appearing in the early 1980s and starring Richard Chamberlain as John Blackthorne - the the Anjin-san - and the late, great, Toshiro Mifune as Lord Toranaga. There was film based on a heavily edited version of the TV series that was good look at but frankly a bit of mess in respect of the editing.

So to the 2024 version. I am not going to go into specific details as I want to avoid any spoilers so have no fears that I will be giving wholesale chunks of the plot away!

Visually it is stunning to look at. The visual palette is relatively subdued in terms of colour which really adds to the look. Naturally there is some CGI involved but this is not overly intrusive, at least not so far that is. The soundtrack itself is quite pleasing to the ear and complements the action in an understated but thoughtful way.

So far so good then.

The 1980’s TV version

As someone that has read the book several times, seen both the original TV series and the film version, I found that the opening two episodes rather scrambled elements of the plot in terms of sequencing and the truncation of what are quite key scenes of the story. I have no real issue with mixing up the plot in terms of translating the book into a screen play in order to help with ‘setting the scene’ but I just wish that perhaps a little more thought had been put into it as many of these seem to have been trimmed back rather excessively. There are a couple of points of detail that I could take exception to as well, with one in particular that really grated!

I am not expecting the series to mirror the book exactly but certain incidents are, in my opinion, key to the story and so need to be thoughtfully handled.

Toshiro Mifune was always going to be a hard act to follow in the key role of Toranaga but Hiroyuki Sanada makes a very good fist of it although visually he is a little on the slim side to be wholly convincing. Cosmo Jarvis plays John Blackthorne and to me he is a little like the curate’s egg i.e. good in parts. In certain scenes he looked uncannily like Rick Grimes in the Walking Dead during his most unkempt moments! At present he comes across as a good actor but underused and in a sense this is the key to what we are seeing. The original novel and first TV series very much emphasised John Blackthorne’s story but this version appears to frame things rather more from the Japanese perspective. This is no bad thing for sure but it does take some getting used to when one is used to the more Western outlook.

Of the rest of the principle characters it has been difficult to really gauge how good they are in the verbal scheme of things and so one hopes that as the series progresses we may get a better insight into their roles and how they impact on the story.

Overall I found it an absorbing watch and I will certainly persevere with the rest of the series. I enjoyed the first two episodes (aforementioned issues notwithstanding) and if nothing else it has gotten me looking at my various Samurai ideas once again!