An English navigator - 'Blackthorne' ('Anjin-san' as we later come to know him) - becomes both a player and pawn in the complex political games of feudal Japan. Although intended for an english-speaking audience, the Japanese characters speak in Japanese throughout the drama, except when translating for Blackthorne. The drama is presented from Blackthorne's point of view so that what he doesn't understand, we shouldn't understand either. However, like great operatic performances which transcend the language in which they are performed, the magnificent talents of the Japanese cast rarely leave us unclear of their character's meaning, intentions, and gravity.
The performances of Toshirô Mifune (Lord Yoshi Toranaga), Furankî Sakai (Lord Kashigi Yabu, Daimyo of Izu), Hideo Takamatsu (Lord Buntaro), Yūki Meguro (Omi, Head Samurai of Anjiro), and Nobuo Kaneko (Ishido, Ruler of Osaka Castle) are masterful and crackle with an authenticity that leaves no doubt they are the masters of life and death in their respective realms.
Yôko Shimada's (Lady Toda Buntaro 'Mariko') superbly graceful performance is equally masterful as it is bewitching, tender, and nuanced. The placid expression she wears mask an inner passion and depth of emotion that, at times, seem to be on the verge of breaking her noble decorum. If you are ever dumbfounded as to the significance of a particular scene look at her eyes for the true meaning of the moment.
Apart from the wonderful Richard Chamberlain (whose life as Anjin-san/Blackthorne this story centers upon) the other great western actors include John Rhys-Davies (the Spanish navigator and personal friend and national enemy of Blackthorne), Alan Badel (Father Visitor Dell'Aqua the Jesuit mastermind and de facto Portuguese ambassador in residence), Damien Thomas (Father Alvito as Blackthorne's cunning and pious nemesis and sometime friend), Vladek Sheybal (Ferriera the openly racist mercantilist Captain of the Black Ship).
The delightfully urbane narration of Orson Welles provides the audience with much appreciated insights into the various twists and turns of the plot and is often, in the course of the same sentence, gravely serious, humorous, insightful, and playful.
Composer Maurice Jarre, a titan of film music and whose credits include Lawrence of Arabia, Grand Prix, Doctor Zhivago, Jesus of Nazareth, Fatal Attraction, among many others, created a magnificent musical accompaniment to this drama that employs both western and eastern musical forms and instruments and results in a very satisfying fusion of both.
Note, dear viewer, this 40 year old made-for-tv drama is a product of its era and consequently has moments of lamentable but ultimately forgivable 'orientalism.'
While Blackthorne becomes lost and engulfed by the culture into which he is thrown, and is enchanted (the bath scene) and horrified (the pheasant incident) by the inscrutable Japanese, these moments do little to promote a Conradian light-bringing meta-narrative but rather poignantly illustrate that it is Blackthorne and the other Europeans who are the barbarians, the gaijin (外人) and interlopers in this ancient and great civilization.
Clavell's story is loosely based on the life of English navigator William Adams, who himself journeyed to Japan in 1600 and rose to high rank in the service of the Tokugawa shogunate.
The viewer may be surprised by the christian elements of the drama. Crucifiction In particular seems incongruous given the Japanese tendency toward cultural isolation in this period but was indeed appropriated by Japan as one of the most humiliating forms of corporal punishment - often applied ironically to converted christian japanese - as early as the 12th century. The theme of Catholicism's struggle to contain the spread of Protestantism abroad is also an important theme of the story but one that tends, in my opinion, to undermine the otherwise admirable and heroic aspects of Anjin-san's character development.
European colonial ambitions in Japan are on full display in the course of the drama and the interplay of both sides of the contest to control Japan's destiny provides a complex picture of both the would-be colonizers and the feudal lords who use them to further their own ends.
