Blog: Movie/TV: Shogun

I have no idea how to label the entry when I review one of the old epic miniseries like Shogun or Roots.  Anyway, Shogun.

Um...  Well, let me put it this way.  It's an American movie, about Japanese history, with a white guy thrown in, made in 1980. 
Oy vey...
Given that, it's not nearly as bad as it could be.  Nonetheless, there is much unintentional amusement.

Language: Even the most rudimentary knowledge of the Japanese language will provide you with giggling opportunities.  Now, I'm always fond of a movie using "Ikura desu ka" for "How are you?", which I think I heard somewhere in the first chapter -- although perhaps that character was asking the hero how much he costs.  ("ikura desu ka" = "how much is it".  To the best of my extremely meager knowledge, there is no direct open-ended equivalent to the English "how are you" and the closest is "Ogenki desu ka" = "Are you well?") 

However, it is hard to beat in the first chapter when the hero is still in captivity and the not-nice local second-in-command and the evil Jesuit (which is largely a redundant statement in this movie) interpreter come in where the hero is sleeping, and the Jesuit insists that "you must get up right now and greet Omi-san with 'Konnichiwa'."  Konnichiwa?!  Good afternoon?  Apparently the reason it's so urgent he get up is because he's slept until 3 pm.

Names: Mariko, Fujiko, Kiku, and many more, not even so much as an "O" honorific prefix floating around among the women until we meet Lady Ochiba -- and I suspect hers was a fluke.  These are modern names that came into popularity in the early part of the 20th century.  Using them here is the equivalent of setting an movie in Queen Elizabeth I's court and naming her ladies in waiting Keisha, Madison, and Taylor.

Stereotypes:  The makers just can't keep their stereotypes straight.  My favorite here is that if a married woman is so much as alone with a man other than her husband, she can be executed -- but it's perfectly OK for her to take a bath with one because the Japanese have no body taboos.

The magic burn cream gets high points on my list, too, because I know that knowledge of Western medicine was highly valued later in the 19th century because it was much more effective than Japanese medicine at the time.  And we still don't have that kind of magic burn treatment even today.

Timing:  Either Blackthorne becomes the second foreigner in all of history to be granted the title of samurai within just a few months of arriving in Japan, or even after several years of full immersion in Japanese culture he is only able to speak the most basic of sentences.

I also personally find it flaming hilarious that Blackthorne is made "Hatamoto" before he is made a member of the samurai class.  Hatamoto in that time period was the title for a samurai in the direct service of a lord (rather than further down the hierarchy).  In other words, he's given one of the highest possible ranks for a samurai before he's made a samurai.

Karma:   For those interested in such things, there are a multitude of opportunities to shout "that's not karma!" in the last couple episodes.  What they are describing as "karma" could maybe come under the term "dharma", but mostly they're just talking about good old-fashioned Western destiny.  It is absolutely not karma.

Basic Plot:  We are at the tail-end of the warring states period.  We've got about 10 hours of movie time here.  We can spend it watching a fictionalized Tokugawa Ieyasu fight to gain power over all Japan, or we can spend it watching a frankly rather lackluster romance. Romance it is! :P


So, is it worth watching?  Um...  It's probably not worth 10 hours of your life.  But, there is Toshiro Mifune. ::squees and claps::  If you want the full Mifune filmography, you almost have to.  Or, if you like laughing at anachronisms and can pick them out of a movie set in 16th/17th century Japan, go nuts.  That's largely outside my knowledge, so I've only touched the tip of the iceberg.  (Although, what is the deal with all the hakama having white ties no matter what the main fabric?  I have never seen or heard of such a thing before.  Is it a historical bit I didn't know, or did they have to special-order wrong hakama?)  Or, if you don't know anything at all about Japan and don't give a crap, and like long drawn-out lackluster romances with occasional long stretches of dialog in a language you can't understand, this is the flick for you!