What 2024’s ‘Shōgun’ Does That 1980’s Did Not
Shōgun premieres on FX and Hulu February 27. Adapted from James Clavell’s gigantic novel, it’s set in Japan in the year 1600, as a civil war is about to break out. There are 10 episodes and Hiroyuki Sanada, Cosmo Jarvis, Anna Sawai and Tadanobu Asano are in the cast.
FX ordered the series way back in 2018.
Reviews are coming in quite positive. The Washington Post said Shōgun “is what thrillers wish they were.”
It continues, “Shōgun is riveting. It’s gorgeous. It’s the TV equivalent of a page-turner. And if you consider the source text — James Clavell’s 1975 novel clocked in at 1,299 pages — that’s no small feat. Condensing a story of that length, set in 1600s Japan, into 10 hours that will be legible to American audiences? Hopeless. But FX’s new adaptation pulls it off.”
The New York Times said, “It is sumptuously produced, mostly well acted and not excessively sentimental or sensational. If its story seems to stop and start a bit, there are reasons for that, which become clear in a satisfying and moving ending; if there are major characters who don’t stand up to scrutiny, there are others who come alive and hold your interest.”
There was a 1980 Shōgun miniseries on NBC, starring Richard Chamberlain and Toshiro Mifune.
Asked at TCA press tour what the producers set out to do that was not done in the miniseries, Justin Marks, co-creator, showrunner and exec producer, said the novel “did an incredible job of telling a story from a variety of points of view.”
He mentioned “a different audience standard” in 2024 “that we can do this show in the language of the country where it is set, that we can have this in Japanese and that we can be subtitling it, and using subtitles not as a device to hold us further apart from another culture in another language, and the people who speak it, but to bring us closer to their inner thoughts, and who they are, and what they feel, meant that we could tell a story that was a lot more layered maybe than anything that could have been done before.”
Marks created the series with Rachel Kondo. Both are executive producers with Michaela Clavell, Edward L. McDonnell and Michael De Luca.
FX also debuts a 10-episode Shōgun podcast February 27.
At press tour, Anna Sawai said the cast “had to learn everything,” including language, costumes and customs, “from zero.”
Hiroyuki Sanada, a producer and cast member, said his experience in Hollywood has seen him speak up on set and off, helping producers and directors get the cultural aspects of a production correct.
Shōgun was different.
“Luckily, this time, Justin, Rachel, and then FX allowed me to do the producing. I got a title for the first time. So I could hire Japanese crew, the specialists for the samurai drama. Wig, costume, props, everything. For the first time ever, I had a team to make it authentic as much as possible. I was so lucky and happy. Of course, responsibility was on my shoulder. Heavily. But more than that, I felt fun and happiness to create the authentic drama with a Western crew and Japanese crew together.”
