revision of the Western view of feudal Japan
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The FX channel airs the series “Shogun”, where Japanese feudal lords fight for power by any means within the confines of samurai ethics. The main thing in the current film adaptation of the bestseller of the mid-1970s is how a Western observer looks at this political game in a new way.
James Clavell’s plump novel “Shogun” about the adventures of an English sailor in Japan in the early 17th century was published in 1975, became a bestseller and was filmed five years later. The TV movie with the languid Richard Chamberlain in the role of the white savior was good for the eighties, but by today’s standards – both ethical and aesthetic – it is completely outdated: in it the Englishman looked at the Japanese as amusing barbarians and all the action revolved around him. In the new series, everything is done to turn this view in the opposite direction. Now the Japanese are considering the grimy adventurer John Blackthorn (Cosmo Jarvis) who has fallen on their head as an unknown animal, wondering what benefit, in the midst of the war of thrones, can be derived from his appearance on a ship full of weapons.
Osaka, 1600. After the death of the country’s supreme ruler, a young heir is in power, surrounded by five regents. Everyone rows for themselves and wants to usurp power, but only the wise Yoshi Toranaga (Hiroyuki Sanada) truly cares about the heir. “Now is not the time to be a good person, you need to become a shogun!” – the old adviser convinces him. A shogunate is a government system in which the country is headed by a general, and not a secular ruler. But Toranaga is not a power-hungry person, at least not outwardly: “The shogunate is a cruel relic of the past,” he claims. Only his rival Ishido (Takehiro Hira), a cruel warlord who has risen from the bottom, is not so scrupulous, so Toranaga will still have to take up arms – and use Blackthorn in a complex network of intrigues.
The Dutch ship reaches the shores of Japan only thanks to the cunning of the English navigator Blackthorn – he got hold of a map where the Strait of Magellan was marked. The Portuguese carefully concealed this route from Dutch and British traders, trying to leave the closed exotic country under their influence. Nobody needs an English Protestant here – the Catholics who have managed to settle down in Japan take Blackthorn with hostility: taking advantage of the fact that he does not speak the local language, they defame him in front of the Japanese military daimyo feudal lords, calling him a pirate. Only the wise Toranaga understands that the matter is dirty, and in order to eliminate “difficulties of translation”, he assigns Lady Mariko (Anna Sawai), a converted Catholic who speaks good Portuguese and is devoted to Toranaga, to the Englishman.
The new “Shogun”, where passions run high, heads are calmly chopped off and enemies are boiled alive, is tempting to compare with “Game of Thrones” – the groundwork here is similar. But there is a significant difference: if the fantasy saga about the kings of the West with their incest and bloody feud around the Iron Throne was a song of ice, fire and lawlessness, then in the game around the shogunate there are still limits. A samurai has no goal – only a path, and on this path “red lines” are drawn for following ancient rituals and the principle of samurai honor.
The Englishman, who does not understand a dog, looks at all this with amazement – and now this is not a look of superiority, but the position of a fool from the cold. “Shut up and don’t show off,” advises Blackthorne’s Portuguese navigator Rodriguez (Nestor Carbonell), the only friendly Catholic local to him. “Accept your destiny, because life and death are predetermined,” advises an experienced white cellmate (by the way, the author of “Shogun” James Clavell spent three years in a Japanese prison during World War II). And the Englishman looks with all his eyes and tries to shake his head, but every time he is amazed at how the Japanese are almost eager to commit seppuku, and what kind of purpose this is. Before his eyes, the owner of the village of Izu, Mr. Kashigi Yabushige (Tadanobu Asano), having disgraced himself at a critical moment in front of the servants, the whole world and himself, almost opens his stomach. Blackthorn has difficulty comprehending the reason: this cunning and cruel cunning guy, it turns out, has his own principles? It turns out that there is. But the devil knows them, these samurai, because from their imperturbable appearance it is difficult to guess what is on their mind.
The difference in mentality becomes no less a stumbling block for a guest from the West than translation difficulties. The local arrangements are explained to him by Mrs. Mariko: “Do not be misled by our politeness, our bows and rituals. From childhood we are taught to build an impenetrable wall within ourselves, behind which we can retreat when necessary.” Apparently, Blackthorne has to understand that the one who is not afraid to die will remain alive here – the local game of thrones has a completely different, non-Western valor.
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