James Clavell's Shogun

Starring:Richard Chamberlain, ToshirÃ´ Mifune, YÃ´ko Shimada, Frankie Sakai, Alan Badel, Damien Thomas, John Rhys-Davies, Vladek Sheybal, Yuki Meguro, Hideo Takamatsu, Nobuo Kaneko, Hiromi Senno, Michael Hordern, George Innes, Leon Lissek, Edward Peel, Eric Richard, Steve Ubels, Stewart MacKenzie, John J. Carney
Director: Jerry London
Studio: Paramount
Product Type: DVD

Amazon.com essential video

What better way to escape from the onslaught of so-called reality television than to sail away with Richard Chamberlain to "the Japans" for a little samurai action and some discreet "pillowing"? From the golden age of the miniseries comes this television benchmark, the 10-hour, Golden Globe-winning saga based on James Clavell's bestselling epic. In his award-winning performance, Chamberlain stars as John Blackthorne, the 17th-century English navigator on a Dutch trading ship. A storm runs the ship aground off the coast of Japan, a "torn and cruelly divided country" locked in a power struggle between Toranaga (the venerable Toshiro Mifune) and Ishido, two warlords who would be Shogun. Blackthorne gets over his initial culture shock ("I piss on you and your country," he defiantly proclaims to his samurai captors, which to his humiliation turns out to be an unfortunate choice of words) to become a trusted ally of Toranaga and the lover of the beautiful interpreter Lady Mariko (Yoko Shimada). Their forbidden, ill-fated romance--and Blackthorne's total assimilation into Japanese culture--is set against political intrigue as Toranaga prepares for the inevitable showdown with Ishido, and Blackthorne's growing influence threatens the local Jesuits who had built up a lucrative trade monopoly. Shogun was a production blessed with good karma, and it remains an awesome achievement from a bygone era when the miniseries was king. --Donald Liebenson

Customer Reviews:

Great nostalgic series.......2007-06-28

We truly enjoyed this set from the series we had seen so many years ago. A good enactment of the book.

James Clavell's Shogun.......2007-06-26

Excellent movie for its time. Very few TV mini-series (if any) come close to its grandeur today.

James Clavell's Shogun.......2007-06-14

It still holds up after all these years. Better than Memoirs of a Geisha and waaay better than The Last Samurai (which probably would have been better without Tom Cruise). Would love to see what HBO would have done with it now days.

Shogun Review.......2007-06-02

I have been waiting for many years for the mini-series to become available on DVD, as it is one of my favorite movies. Even though the tale is fiction, being somewhat of a history buff, I captured by the story and enthralled by the beautiful scenery of the island of Japan.

Shogun Review.......2007-06-02

About 3/4 of the way into the first disk the movie just froze. That is, the image displayed was static. There was of course no sound. I could not fast forward.

By returning to the main menu and selecting a scene subsequent to the scene that froze I was able to see the remainder of disk #1.

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