In the 1980s, the TV series Shōgun captivated fans by transporting them to 17th-century Japan, inspired on James Clavell’s best-selling book.
Now, an FX revival of the programme will premiere on Disney Plus in 2024, starring movie superstar Hiroyuki Sanada.
The 10-part drama promises to be a spectacle, judging on the teaser. It already has a 100% rating on Rotten Tomatoes based on reviews.
All of their characters are based on historical figures who served as inspiration for Clavell’s novel, which takes place during Japan’s feudal era.
The Shōgun mini-series, starring Richard Chamberlain, follows the 1975 historical fiction novel.
It was the first American television series to be shot entirely on location in Japan, and it won several honours, including Golden Globes and Emmys.
Sanada, who has starred in productions including The Last Samurai, The Wolverine, Avengers: Endgame, John Wick: Chapter 4 and Lost, said that he felt ‘so happy’ to be involved in this project.
‘This story is a great chance to introduce our culture to the world. That’s why I try to make [it] authentic as much as possible,’ he said.
The 63-year-old emphasised the importance of avoiding stereotypes and misunderstandings when writing the script for the Shōgun remake.
The actor was also a producer on the show, detailing how the Japanese film team, which comprised samurai theatre professionals in each area, collaborated with a Western production to ‘create something new’.
‘So it’s going to [have] great meaning for me and for the industry, for the next generation of Japanese artists. So big, big to me,’ he added.
Jarvis’ character, John Blackthorne, is based on William Adams, the real-life English sailor who became famous as the first Englishman to enter Japan.
The 34-year-old explained that his knowledge of Clavell’s work was’secondary’ to him, since he initially read the pages of his script before going to the book.
‘Being the man who was the first curator of that piece of history, and who found the models of our characters like Captain William Adams and Tokugawa, who found that period of history interesting enough to fictionalise… the amount of work it must have taken for him to have done that was pretty remarkable,’ he said.
Sawai, 31, expressed how she feels about the way in which Shōgun depicts Japanese culture authentically, as a person of Japanese descent.
‘I also feel that his novel introduced Japan to the world, and the miniseries also really entertained everyone and it was a whole thing,’ she said.
‘But as a Japanese [person], I think this show brings more authenticity to it and more accuracy. And as a Japanese viewer, I don’t feel like our culture is being depicted in a way that I don’t believe is true.
‘With every… the novel and then this miniseries and our show, I think we’re really evolving and so I’m just [grateful] to be participating in that legacy.’
Jarvis, who was interviewed at the same time as Sawai, said that, while certain modifications have been made to the TV reboot from the book, the original source material is still heavily acknowledged.
‘There are some changes from the book. The changes have been conducted with a huge amount of respect still paid to the book and and if there are any changes, it’s not for me to say whether they’re improvements or what they are, but I think they’re still in the spirit of what James Clavell did in the first place,’ he stated.
One critic, Eric Francisco from Inverse, described the 2024 revival of Shōgun as ‘a rich, textured, even sensitive grownup drama that knows how to strike the razor-thin balance between spectacle and spectacular’.
Judy Berman of Time Magazine also wrote: ‘At a time when so many of TV’s biggest swings, from Amazon’s The Rings of Power and Citadel to Netflix’s Stranger Things and The Crown, have yielded at least partial misses, FX’s Shōgun stands apart as a genuine masterpiece.’
FX’s Shōgun is set to premiere on February Tuesday 27 on Disney Plus.