Westward Expansion

Earlier this year I watched and reviewed the HuluOriginally created as a joint streaming service between the major U.S. broadcast networks, Hulu has grown to be a solid alternative to the likes of Netflix and Amazon Prime, even as it learns harder on its collection of shows from Fox and FX since Disney purchased a majority stake in the service. reboot of Shōgun, a miniseries based on James Clavell book of the same name. Much of the hype for this miniseries came from the fact that it was a new adaptation of a famed book that had already spawned one hit miniseries before, back in 1980. That miniseries gained acclaim for its rich production values, serious storytelling, and the fact that it took Japanese culture far more seriously than had been done in previous film and television efforts in the West. It opened audiences up to Japanese culture and tried to paint that era and place and history in a light many hadn’t seen before. It was considered a great success.

Because of this, and because I found the 2024 version to be quite an entrancing effort, I felt like I had to give the 1980 effort a watch just to see how well it did. A three-hour, five-episode miniseries wouldn’t be a big thing to get through, especially if it was anywhere near as good as all the past reviewers stated. So I went out and found a copy of the miniseries on Blu-Ray, settling in for a watch of this acclaimed and award-winning series. Could this show stand up to the test of time?

No, it could not. Don’t get me wrong, this is a show that really was unlike anything that was on television at the time of its release, with strong production values, decent acting, and a story that really tried to stick to the main beats of what James Clavell wrote in his book. But whether it was the smaller budget of the era, the kind of actors they could get for television productions, or the fact that even when trying to hew closely to the original novel the production still had to make something Western audiences would appreciate, this miniseries has not aged very well. It’s slow, it’s tired, and it lacks the punchiness needed to hold up to modern sensibilities, especially when you’re coming to it after watching the Hulu version. It just can’t compete.

Like the 2024 version (and, presumably, the book as well), 1980’s Shōgun follows Pilot-Major John Blackthorne (aka "Anjin-san", as played by Richard Chamberlain) who was on a mission to Japan. He and his crew were sent by their English and Dutch backers to find the Japan islands and try to make contact with her leadership. The goal was to try and pry control of the Japanese mainland away from the Portuguese (who, through a deal with the Spanish, had divided much of the world between their two empires) so that the Japanese people could set up better (read, more lucrative for the Dutch and English alliance) trader deals with newer suitors.

Unfortunately for Blackthorne and his crew, their ship was becalmed in the sea, leaving them to slowly starve to death. When finally they are blown ashore to the Japanese islands, they are captured by a men serving Lord Kashigi Yabu (Frankie Sakai), Daimyo of Izu, who then holds him and his men captive until they can be presented to the Lord of the Kanto Region, Yoshi Toranaga (Toshiro Mifune), who might have use for him and his knowledge of the sea. This puts Blackthorne in a precarious position, as now he’s a pawn in a much greater war between the various rulers of the Japanese people, all while he has to deal with threats from the Portuguese Jesuit priests who think he’s a heretic as well as a spy and want him dead.

In basic structure this 1980 Shōgun follows the story you expect. Guy shows up on his boat, is captured, presented to the Lord of the region, and then has to earn trust and respect so he can further his ends, all while being used as a pawn by that lord. But in the details, where it counts, this is a much less interesting version of the same story. All of this comes down to the way the story is built and how the characters are used. It has the bones but doesn’t use them the right way, making for a far less dynamic production.

For starters, this miniseries is very heavily focused on Blackthorne. He’s the white guy, the Westerner, so for the audience (who was mostly American) he’s also our audience surrogate. What he learns, we learn and what he understands, we understand. The miniseries doesn’t spoon feed us information but it also has to work to get us to understand what’s going on and it does this by keeping its focus locked on Blackthorne. He’s the hero, the protagonist, the one trying to balance everything around him. He’s there for our benefit. When you contrast that against the 2024 version of Blackthorne, who is just one character in a tapestry, with so much of the world going on around him and ignoring him, it feels like the focus on this 1980 miniseries is too narrow to work well.

What it leads to is the miniseries feeling like a White Savior tale. The white guy shows up and only because he’s there can Lord Toranaga actually put his plans into motion. Because Blackthorne is here, so many events are shaped differently. It’s only through the actions of our protagonist that Japanese history was made. It reminds me a lot of The Last Samurai, the Tom Cruise film that’s also, really, one big White Savior tale. It just doesn’t look as nice and isn’t as well acted.

Now, in fairness, there was one storytelling change I did like: because Blackthorne is new in Japan and doesn’t know the language, the miniseries (more often than not) keeps us and him in the dark about what’s being said around him. There is sparing use of subtitles and long conversations go on around him that he can’t understand, which we only get second or third hand after the fact. This feels authentic and real, which I liked, but it again feeds back to the issue that we can’t only view the story from Blackthorne’s perspective because it’s on\ly with him that things will eventually get explained.

On top of that, there aren’t many characters we really can care about. Blackthorne, obviously, is our protagonist so we have to like him or we aren’t making it through the production. I think he’s acted well enough by Chamberlain, although the actor is prone to the occasional fit of bombast, as if he’s in a theater playing for the cheap seats at the back. Lord Toranaga, as played by Mifune, is interesting enough, but he’s held at a reserve for most of the series so it’s really hard to get a bead on him until it’s almost too late.

The character I felt was worst served by the production, though, was Lady Mariko, played by Yoko Shimada. She ends up acting as Blackthorne’s translator, since she knows Portuguese, and there should be a strong connection between them. At least, there is in the 2024 version, where she’s not just his translator but also his conscience, his lover, and his equal. None of that really comes across for her character in this version, reducing down her role for whole acts of the miniseries so we can then focus on the male characters. I wished Mariko had a larger, more interesting part here because her absence in this version (after seeing her play such a big role in the 2024 version) was noticeable. She’s there, but she’s rarely ever important.

What struck me watching this version was just how uninterested in it I actually was. When compared to the 2024 version, which is over three times as long, I actually felt like the 1980 version was longer and more tedious. It has a shorter runtime but it barely uses it well. It takes forever to get going, glosses over many of the political scenes on the Japanese side so it can focus on Blackthorne, and barely gives us a good sense of the real story brewing beneath the surface. It’s weirdly superficial even with its three-hour runtime and focus on Japanese culture. It just doesn’t work.

I can see why people liked this series as it was probably new and interesting back in the day. But we’ve since moved on and had newer and better glimpses of Japanese culture (not the least of which was the 2024 miniseries that did this story a whole hell of a lot better). I wish this series was good because I think the underlying story is great. I just don’t think we can go back to the 1980 version and appreciate it for what it was. At this point, there’s just no comparison.