James Clavell's Shogun

An Epic Mini-Series: take a weekend and enjoy it again
It has been two decades since James Clavell's novel first aired, but "Shogun" is still one of the finest mini-series yet produced and it still holds up. The stranger in a strange land story of an English navigator shipwrecked in fuedal Japan strikes such a strong chord because the audience is in the same predicament as the main character, confronted with an unknown and dangerous world that refuses to make sense. "Shogun" was filmed in Japan with remarkable fidelity to both the original story and local culture.

As Pilot-Major John Blackthorne, Chamberlain is often called upon to do more with looks than with dialogue. As the "King of the Mini-Series," it is easy to forget what Chamberlain can do as an actor given the proper material (I wish his version of Christopher Fry's "The Lady's Not For Burning" was available on video tape). Actually, there is a sense in which Chamberlain's performance is arguable the weakest of the cast, but that...

An epic and original mini-series!
Very few mini-series' ever live up to the book from which it came. Shogun comes very close. Taking place during a period when all of Europe was competing for the riches of the world, the story starts off with the last ship of a lost fleet, down to a skeleton crew (in size as well as health) trying to find "the Japans". Pilot-Major John Blackthorn, played well by Richard Chamberlain, wakes up on shore in Japan after barely making to land. Used to being in control, he is swept up in all the politics and violence that this period of Japan could offer. In just the first day alone he sees a beheading, is forced to listen to one of his crew boiled to death, and must endure the shame of having a Samurai "relieve himself" on his back. He then becomes a pawn between two lords, the brutal Ishido, and the cunning Toranaga. As Blackthorn begins to understand the culture, he also begins to build his own power and worth, causing Toranaga to realize the value of the...

I've Waited For This For Years!
I've waited for years for Shogun to be released on DVD, and I'm delighted with it. Yes, a booklet with information and chapter listings would have been nice, but that's probably not going to be a dealbreaker for many people.

I'd like to know what some of the other reviewers think was deleted in this edition. I was very familiar with the miniseries, having seen it several times and having taped it at the time on an old Betamax, and I didn't notice anything missing in the DVD edition...except that accidental helicopter shadow! Nothing that I expected to see was gone. As an earlier customer pointed out, the original show ran for 12 hours on NBC because of all the commercials, network promos, opening titles and closing credits in every segment, etc. Take out all that padding, and 9 hours of actual program content sounds about right. If anybody can identify any actual deletions, I'd be interested in hearing what they are.

I would have liked to have seen the brief nude scenes of...

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