Full disclosure: I love the original 1980 adaptation. Yes, it's a bit cheesy at times (here's looking at you, Richard Chamberlain) but overall it's a marvelous adaptation of a fairly mediocre novel.
I can binge watch the entire 1980 adaptation in a day (and I have), no problem. It's that captivating. The 2024 adaptation however took perhaps two or three weeks to get through. Only once, if memory serves me right, did I watch more than one episode in a row. I took a break for about a week or so after the second or third episode simply because it never grabbed my attention. It's not bad, it's mediocre, just like the novel.
It is interesting to witness two completely different adaptations of the same source material.
The 1980 adaptation is basically a fish out of water narrative almost exclusively told from Blackthorne's perspective where he is stranded in a strange, foreign land whose society and customs we learn along with him. More than that, we the viewers also learn snippets of the language along with him.
The 2024 adaptation is closer to the novel whose second half in particular is devoted to an intricate Japanese power struggle a la Game of Thrones. This, incidentally, is also the least intriguing thing about the novel, and the TV show does not surpass its source material. For anyone who has read the novel, it surely doesn't come as a surprise that they would up the sex and blood in this new adaptation. And finally Mariko gets her B A moment which is absent from the 1980 adaptation.
It's amusing to read the reviews lamenting the blue balls ending to the show. A ton of build up promising a final confrontation, and then nothing. That's taken straight out of the novel.
The point where this adaptation fails are the characters who are poorly introduced and defined. They mostly melt into the wallpaper. I have both read the novel (as recently as last year) and must have watched the 1980 adaptation at least a half dozen times (low ball estimate) yet it took quite some time before I realized "Wait, that's Omi? And *that's* Buntaro??". They came off as extras, not as vital characters to the plot.
The guy playing Blackthorne is doing Richard Burton for some reason. Other than that, he's OK. Although he seems to be almost fluent in Japanese quite fast, using words that we as an audience have not seen him faced with earlier. Blackthorne and Mariko have absolutely zero chemistry in this adaptation. It's like watching a vacuum. As for Sanada, he lacks the natural authority of Mifune.
Visually, it is quite honestly a let down. Yes, beautiful costumes and wigs. But the VFX work is surprisingly shoddy. Take the scenes on the boat, for instance. No doubt nowhere near water but shot on a parking lot with a blue screen. I'm reminded of the director's commentary track to The Naked Gun where they joke about their cinematographer being the only one who can make a location look like a set thanks to poor lighting. The roto work, especially in their hair, is a fuzzy mess. I fully understand shooting action scenes in a controlled environment. But regular sailing shots in beautiful weather on calm seas? This just came off as lazy.
But it's not only the boat. It's basically any show where you see more architecture than a wall or wooden hut (sometimes even nature) in the background.
The PR for this show drones on and on about its "authenticity", yet it was shot in Canada. I'll tell you what, the 1980 adaptation got so much free authenticity just from being shot on location. When Blackthorne draws the world map in the gardens by the pond, it's really Hikone Castle (standing in for Osaka Castle) in the background. When Blackthorne and Mariko are strolling through the gardens, it's really Himeji in the background. As Blackthorne is escorted through the castle by brother Michael, the Japanese priest, near the end of the series, they blend seamlessly between Himeji and Hikone. If you go to these locations (as I have) you can literally walk in their footsteps. Now that's authenticity.
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