I don’t have tv or WiFi so I get streaming series in bits and pieces on YouTube, sorta like a bits of a jigsaw puzzle.
Having seen bits and pieces of Shogun, it looks really good,,head and shoulders above the original 80’s version.
Yabusige steals every scene 🎬 he’s in.
"...if the gentlemen of Virginia shall send us a dozen of their sons, we would take great care in their education, instruct them in all we know, and make men of them." Canasatego 1744
Needs to confirm the juice is worth the squeeze before spending the next decade piecing it together in 4 minute clips from the Youtube on McDonalds and laundry mat wifi.....duh
I have not seen it yet, but I was reading that on Hulu you can set it up to get English soundtrack. Go into settings and select English as audio. Most shows on Hulu are in English so most of us never selected a language. I can check on this later.
I’m trying to understand his thought process. Wants to know about a tv show. But has no way of watching it, so why ask if anyone is watching it.
I got curious. Yellowstone got lots of hits here, Deadwood less, Peaky blinders got some. No mention of Shogun.
The other motive was to bring attention to it if folks were missing it.
Anyhow, I got relatives and friends who are like relatives who live in normal houses. At some point while visiting I’ll bing-watch the whole series (I seen all of 1883 this way in one long, dreadful night last summer. OMG it sucked )
You’re a generation younger so you might not know James Clavell, who wrote the book “Shogun”, was a combat veteran, he ended up as a POW in the Pacific in WWII, survived three years in a Japanese prison camp. He wrote the book in part as therapy for his ongoing PTSD and to try and get over his hatred of the Japanese.
"...if the gentlemen of Virginia shall send us a dozen of their sons, we would take great care in their education, instruct them in all we know, and make men of them." Canasatego 1744
Besides the obvious improvement in production values, the big difference is this was directed by Hiroyuki Sanada, a familiar face from a number of American movies (his best movie of his I’ve seen tho is a Japanese production “The Twilight Samurai”).
Mr Sanada, who plays Toranaga in the show, wanted to get it right, Medieval Japan from a Japanese perspective. I dunno Japanese from a hole in the ground but apparently they’re even speaking Medieval Japanese, as alien as Shakespearean English is today.
Looks like they have made some minor changes from the book. I ain’t seen a scene where Blackthorne tries to commit seppuku (hara kiri??). And rather than Toranaga ordering a retainer and his wife to kill their children to test their loyalty (after Toranaga has their children sequestered away so it can’t happen), in this one Toranaga has one of his offending retainers actually kill his infant son before killing himself, so wiping out his line as well, the bereaved widow being made Blackthorne’s consort, forbidden to kill herself until six months have passed.
Yabu steals the show in the vein of Toshiro Mifuni/John Belushi and Buntaro’s character (Mariko’s husband) is a lot more sympathetic than the book/previous series. The Blackthorne/Mariko romance thing, a central them in the book, ain’t given that much emphasis either (other than the fact they like each other, she slept with him when she thought Buntaro was dead, and Buntaro can sense something’s going on but is forbidden to kill Blackthorne.)
Really worth a look.
"...if the gentlemen of Virginia shall send us a dozen of their sons, we would take great care in their education, instruct them in all we know, and make men of them." Canasatego 1744
Yabusige, Blackthorne and Buntaro all in the same scene….
"...if the gentlemen of Virginia shall send us a dozen of their sons, we would take great care in their education, instruct them in all we know, and make men of them." Canasatego 1744