Old “Shogun” Director Talks FX’s Series

When it comes to TV awards, FX’s “Shogun” has won basically everything under the sun over the past year – the critically acclaimed series adaptation of the legendary 1975 James Clavell novel has been universally praised by audiences and reviewers alike. Well, almost universally.

One person for whom the appeal of the new series has escaped him is Jerry London, the helmer of NBC’s nine-hour 1980 TV mini-series adaptation of the work. That version starred Richard Chamberlin as Blackthorne, Toshiro Mifune as Toranaga and Yoko Shimada as Mariko.

The show drew massive ratings, a 26.3 which was the second highest in television history at the time after ABC’s “Roots”. It also won the Emmy and Golden Globe for limited series, along with a Peabody award.

It also is structurally different with the Blackthorne character more in the foreground and the story unfolding through his eyes, while the romance angle is played up. Speaking with THR, London says the new one “is not entertaining for an American audience” whereas his version was designed to be as accessible as possible for Western audiences:

“It’s completely different from the one I did. Mine was based on the love story of Shogun between Blackthorne and Mariko, and this new one is based on Japanese history, and it’s more about Toranaga, who was the Shogun. It’s very technical and very difficult for an American audience to get their grips into it. I’ve talked to many people that have watched it, and they said, ‘I had to turn it off because I don’t understand it.’ So the filmmakers of the new one really didn’t care about the American audience.”

That doesn’t mean he doesn’t like it, but London says the show is made for a whole different audience than his version so he feels both are quite different works:

“They made it basically for Japan, and I was happy about it because I didn’t want my show to be copied. I think I did such a great job, and it won so many accolades, that I didn’t want them to copy it, which they didn’t do. But the new one is funny because everybody I talked to said, ‘I don’t understand it. What’s it all about?’ I watched the whole thing. It’s very difficult to stick with. It won all the [Emmy] awards because there were no big shows against it. There was not too much competition.”

The recent “Shogun” starred Cosmo Jarvis as Blackthorne, Hiroyuki Sanada as Lord Toranaga and Anna Sawai as Mariko. It set the record for most Emmy wins in a single season with 18 along with becoming the first Japanese-language series to win the trophy for best drama series.

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