In the Eighties, it felt like every household had a copy of Shogun by James Clavell on the bookshelves. Running to some 800 or so pages, with a samurai sword on the cover and a ruddy cool title, I remember it seeming so exotic and enthralling to me as a child.
Clavell's novel, first published in 1975, was a cultural phenomenon. It sold millions of copies before being adapted into a hugely popular TV series, and some claim it sparked a rise in the West embracing Japanese culture and cuisine.
All these decades on, Disney+ has returned to the source material, loosely based on the true story of a 16th century English sailor who became a samurai, thrust into a world of bloody infighting among Japanese rulers while empires jostled to establish trading supremacy.
So what is a shogun? Turns out it’s a solo military dictator, but by the time the show is set, of a kind that hasn’t ruled in a century. But tension is building among the ruling council of five, and some want to return to the old ways. "Now is not the time for good men,” one says. “It's time for a shogun."
As this adaptation makes clear, it is also time for a lot of fighting, disease, some very nasty methods of execution, a bit of bonking and an awful lot of sitting around in paper-walled rooms looking serious.
No expense has been spared in this lavish series. It’s a full, gloriously realised immersion into the period – sometimes, with all the trade and empire chat, a bit too full an immersion. It starts off fairly confusing, but the context does become clearer as the series goes on.
It opens with John Blackthorne (Cosmo Jarvis) washing up in a fishing village with the remaining crew of the Dutch ship Erasmus (at least someone can still go around the world on Erasmus) after various issues that don’t bear explanation here has decimated their fleet.
The men are taken prisoners by Japanese soldiers under the command of Lord Toranaga, one of the five on the ruling council; it’s impossible for either side to understand the other – it’s basically scenes of men shouting “barbarian” and “savage” at each other in different languages – and it sets in motion a chain of events that will bring Blackthorne and Toranaga much closer together.
Ultimately, translators are found, and the situation (personal and geopolitical) slowly becomes clear to all sides. On the geopolitical side, Catholic Portugal seems to have built a secret, very lucrative empire in the East, and aren't keen that any other Europeans – especially the Protestant English or Dutch – get in on the action.
The Japanese aren’t aware that Portugal and Spain have done a deal carving up the East for themselves, or of the secret European military bases in Macau, and they’re not thrilled when they do find out. Absolutely no one seems pleased by the presence of the imperious Blackthorne.
Jarvis is one of those actors who is not just chameleonic – anyone who has seen him in Calm with Horses and then Persuasion can attest to his powers of transformation – but always brings so much more to a role than just speaking the words in order. It’s the eyes; there’s a whole lot going on behind them, and it means he’s never less than compelling.
His Blackthorne is a man struggling; a stranger in a stranger land, far away from home, facing aggression and incomprehension on all sides but determined to give as good as he gets. His accent here is a bit like Richard Burton doing an impression of Winston Churchill, and his mix of haughteur and fish-way-out-of-water uncertainty makes for compelling viewing.
As an aside, it’s impossible not to be amused by him as an Englishman trying to make himself understood abroad by shouting louder – clearly a long and venerable tradition. To stress how English he is in fact, he has called his kids Tudor and Elizabeth. His assimilation into Japanese society from the archetypal John Bull will no doubt be a pleasure to watch as it goes on (I’ve seen four of the 10 episodes).
Meanwhile, Toranaga (Hiroyuki Sanada, best known in the West for an impressive action movie career), one of the regents on the ruling council, is being outmanoeuvred by his rivals, and what follows are vicious power games and treachery all hidden under the cloak of civility and respect. And it emerges, just as he has captured Blackthorne, he too is being kept a sort of prisoner by his fellow council members. Could his English captive be the key to power?
In Torangana’s retinue is Lady Moriko. In a culture where the women are relegated to the role of courtesans, wives and mothers, she breaks the mould because she can translate between the English and the Japanese – making her a hugely powerful diplomatic asset in a time before Google Translate – and also, it turns out, she’s more than a bit handy with a blade.
Moriko is played by Anna Sawai, a former pop star in Japan who’s tearing things up in the acting world, starring in BBC drama Giri/Hadji, Fast and the Furious 9, Apple TV+’s Pachenko and, more recently, the streamer’s Monarch: Legacy of Monsters, in which she co-stars with Godzilla. Here, without her reptilian co-star, she is mesmeric.
Shogun is prestige drama writ large. Lush locations (it’s impossible to tell that this 16th century Japan was all recreated in Vancouver), superb performances and an engaging story that may take its time but inexorably draws the viewer in.
If there are perhaps a few too many tense meetings in tidy rooms, that is balanced out by thrilling, heart-stopping action, whether battle scenes on land or our heroes facing the elements on ships, where the camera gets right up in the faces of the poor souls dashed by storms or onto the rocks. It’s breathtaking stuff.
This is a story of empires moving against each other, of political intrigue and the battle for power. It’s about fear of the unknown, a closed society having to face change and the people caught in the middle – all told in a gloriously, thrillingly realised package.
