Filming on FX’s new television series Shōgun was due to begin in March 2019, but was halted because producers felt the production wasn’t ready. Good thing too, or they might have had to halt anyway because of Covid-19.
Good thing as well that they took the production seriously enough to give it the time it needed. It was worth it. Shōgun is spectacular. Only two episodes have been released so far but the production quality is immediately apparent.
Minimal CGI gives the occasional sweeping shot of a marching army or the sprawling city of Osaka. The sets and costumes feature more—they are detailed and beautifully made, from the sixteenth-century ship which carries the protagonist John Blackthorne into Japan, to the leather leg greaves and rope sandals of the Japanese soldiers.
The show is based on the 1975 novel by James Clavell about an Englishman’s encounter with the formidable daimyo, the military leader of feudal Japan. Clavell’s thousand-plus page novel itself is based on the life of daimyo Tokugawa Ieyasu, who rose to become shōgun, the highest-ranking political and military position of the time. The novel is acclaimed for its detail and cultural accuracy, and the writers of FX’s series have aimed to emulate that. Writers and married couple Rachel Kondo & Justin Marks were involved in a years-long writing process, completing a draft, and sending it to a Japanese playwright to be translated into Japanese, who would then send it back to Japanese producer Eriko Miyagawa for re-translation into English.
The result is a bilingual and carefully considered script, made up of equal parts of English and Japanese with subtitles. The previous TV adaptation of Shōgun in 1980 was told from the Englishman’s point of view. This new series shifts the perspective to the Japanese, hoping that viewers will be willing to read subtitles for over ten hours.
I hope their gamble pays off because this show is worth the effort. Telling the story from both the Japanese and the Englishman’s perspective allows us to watch the political dramas unfolding behind the screens of Osaka Castle, and increases the isolation of the Englishman who is imprisoned inside. Cosmo Jarvis plays John Blackthorne, a tough and stubborn pilotmajor sent by Queen Elizabeth to weaken the Portuguese Catholic mission in Japan.
When Blackthorne arrives he faces not only suspicious Japanese overlords but also scheming Portuguese monks who want him dead. Jarvis is well cast—his wide-set blue eyes are so glassy they almost look like marbles, probably as strange a pair of eyes as the Japanese have ever seen. He is hot-tempered but intelligent—ie, he knows when to shut up and bow ‘like a dog’ to his captors.
The Japanese and the English may not understand one another, but peeing on a prisoner is an insult in any language. Blackthorne is handed from one violent captor to another as his hosts decide whether they can use him or whether he’s better or dead. The clever regent Lord Toranaga realises that his interests and the Englishman’s may be closer than they think. Actor and martial artist Hiroyuki Sanada plays Toranaga, a daimyo and heir to the extinct title of shōgun. When the last leader died, he entrusted Toranaga and four other regents to protect his son until his sixteenth birthday. Bad idea.
The other regents yearn for power and band together to bring down Toranaga, the one with the greatest potential for becoming the next leader. Sanada is brilliant and so still, the smallest movement of his eyes has huge significance. One gesture from him could mean death to a member of his house. In the series there is extreme and shocking violence but, like a nightmare, the image is gone in a moment.
There is no Tarantino-style lingering on squirting blood or protruding intestines. Violence is always just under the surface, but after it flares up life quickly moves on. The scenery is some of the most beautiful on TV today—it made me want to wait until nightfall to watch, with no glare from the sunlight to mar the image. A deep blue sky at sunset casts the silhouettes of two fishermen in darkness, with only the red spark of a torch to light their work. The misty forests and cliffs rise sharply above the surf, where ships throw themselves against the rocks. There is a wonderful scene where our English protagonist proves his skill as a seaman in a time of crisis. A daimyo’s boat sets sail for Osaka but is caught in a heavy gale.
Colossal waves crash over the decks and John Blackthorne shouts through the storm that they must turn into the gale. In their fear and bewilderment, the Japanese allow Blackthorne to take charge, and he brings them safely to shore. EXective scenes like these give the sense that the action is pushing Blackthorne towards the centre of power in Japan.
We can bet that he will soon be relied upon by the most senior figures in the country, and he will do so without even speaking the language. But how does he manage it? It will be hard to wait a whole week to find out.
