Post by Asaemon on Nov 26, 2023 19:58:02 GMT 1
Shōgun is a 1980 American historical drama television miniseries based on James Clavell's 1975 novel of the same name. The series was produced by Paramount Television and first broadcast in the United States on NBC over five nights between September 15 and September 19, 1980. It was written by Eric Bercovici and directed by Jerry London, and stars Richard Chamberlain, Toshiro Mifune, and Yoko Shimada, with a large supporting cast. Clavell served as executive producer. To date, it is the only American television production to be filmed on-location entirely in Japan, with additional soundstage filming also taking place in Japan at the Toho studio.
The miniseries is loosely based on the adventures of English navigator William Adams, who journeyed to Japan in 1600 and rose to high rank in the service of the shōgun. It follows fictional Englishman John Blackthorne's (Chamberlain) transforming experiences and political intrigues in feudal Japan in the early 17th century.
The miniseries is loosely based on the adventures of English navigator William Adams, who journeyed to Japan in 1600 and rose to high rank in the service of the shōgun. It follows fictional Englishman John Blackthorne's (Chamberlain) transforming experiences and political intrigues in feudal Japan in the early 17th century.
After his Dutch trading ship Erasmus and its surviving crew is blown ashore by a violent storm at Anjiro on the east coast of Japan, Pilot-Major John Blackthorne, the ship's English navigator, is taken prisoner by samurai warriors. When he is later temporarily released, he must relinquish his English identity, while adapting to the alien Japanese culture in order to survive. Being an Englishman, Blackthorne is at both religious and political odds with his enemy, the Portuguese traders, and the Catholic Church's Jesuit order. The Catholic foothold in Japan puts Blackthorne, a Protestant and therefore a heretic, at a political disadvantage. This same situation, however, also brings him under the scrutiny of the influential Lord Toranaga, who mistrusts this foreign religion now spreading throughout Japan. He is competing with other samurai warlords of similar high-born rank, among them Catholic converts, for the very powerful position of shōgun, the military governor of Japan.
