Sure, the FX series stars a white man, but it finds captivating ways to avoid the same pitfalls as other Hollywood samurai stories.
TOKYO — FX’s “Shōgun” captivated a broad audience when it premiered this spring, including viewers in Japan, like myself.
On Wednesday, the FX series proved that it had captured the attention of the Television Academy as well, with 25 Emmy nominations, including for Outstanding Drama Series, Lead Actor and Lead Actress. The Emmy frontrunner had submitted for 40 nominations across the drama categories and made history as only the second non-English TV series to be recognized in the top drama category.
To be frank, I was surprised that I fell in love with “Shōgun.” I have a love-hate relationship with Western films and TV shows set in Japan. It’s nice that Hollywood takes such great interest in a foreign culture, with budgets hefty enough to attract A-list actors. However, what’s with this obsession of throwing white characters into samurai stories? Think legendary action star Tom Cruise in “The Last Samurai,” which includes a very obvious “white savior” plot. I’d argue “47 Ronin” is not far off, either: To make a film about a real-life group of lordless samurai in the 18th century, Hollywood added a fictional character that is half-white to accommodate blockbuster star Keanu Reeves.
I quickly realized that these films were my initial reason for hesitating to watch “Shōgun.” Just as I was about to ignore the show, though, the trailers and social media videos convinced me to watch. The promos emphasized how different the series would be from previous Hollywood productions set in Asia.
The series has done a stellar job avoiding those pitfalls — and its efforts to show complexity is what makes it so good. It critically approaches the typical plot of “clash of two cultures” by transcending the simplistic binary of the “self” versus the “other.” This dynamic makes the show a lot more exciting.
The show’s success has once again opened up the discussion of why authenticity matters. “Shōgun” was adapted from James Clavell’s 1975 historical novel of the same name. The book was based on historical events, and John Blackthorne (Cosmo Jarvis) was inspired by a real 16th century pilot, William Adams. Clavell released the original book as part of the Asian Saga series, to tell “the story of the Anglo-Saxon in Asia.”
This framework makes it easy to prop up Orientalist tropes — the presentation of Eastern stories through a narrow Western lens. It can be a challenging narrative for Hollywood directors to avoid, because it is inevitably easier for Western audiences to garner sympathy for Western characters that have a more familiar viewpoint.
The iconic film “Lost in Translation” falls into this trap, where we see the exotic, incomprehensible and perplexing culture and people of Japan through the lens of two Americans. The backdrop of Tokyo helps to isolate the main characters from the surrounding environment and let the audience feel the loneliness and surrealness of a foreign land.
This trick is convenient, effective and quite often entertaining: It serves to give “main character energy” to protagonists while also helping to navigate the foreign setting through a familiar viewpoint. But it also is overdone, especially in places like Japan.
One of the biggest differences between the 2024 version of “Shōgun” and the 1980 TV miniseries — other than its overall visual quality — is that there are subtitles for the Japanese dialogue. Keeping Japanese unintelligible to (most) audiences in the 1980s series was a conscious decision; the story is told from Blackthorne’s perspective and is faithful to the original novel. What Blackthorne does not understand, the audience should not either.
Wes Anderson’s “Isle of Dogs” employed a similar technique. In the 2018 film, set in the fictional city of Megasaki, dogs spoke English and the residents spoke Japanese. The movie does not provide translated subtitles for most of the Japanese, which helped to emphasize the dichotomy of two worlds and ensured audiences would naturally sympathize with the dogs, as the “villains” speak in an unintelligible language. The hero is an English-speaking exchange student from the U.S. — which also adds a white savior plot to a film that already used an Orientalist language trick.
“Shōgun,” on the other hand, has an abundance of Japanese dialogue, with subtitles, that contributes significantly to the overall storytelling. While Blackthorne remains the central figure guiding the narrative, the perspectives are rendered more intricately than in the original novel or previous adaptation.
The complexity of the gender landscape was also depicted well in “Shōgun.” The 1600s was not a great time for women all around the world, and especially not in Japan’s feudal and patriarchal society in the midst of military chaos. However, misogyny and female participation (or non-participation) in society do not operate or look the same way universally. At certain times, samurai-class women appear so powerful but somehow also oppressed; they are expected to be submissive to their husbands, yet they can also have more commanding roles. Instead of depicting them to be passive and powerless women, the series visualized them with more nuance and complexity.
In one memorable scene in Episode 6, Lady Mariko (Anna Sawai) and Fuji (Moeka Hoshi) negotiate the price of courtesan service, a gift for Blackthorne, with successful business woman Gin (Yuko Miyamoto). Three women talking money so eloquently in a tense meeting — or sipping tea with a side eye — is not an everyday sight around the world in the 1600s, yet it serves as a reminder of the constant male gaze and the commodification of female bodies.
Sawai, especially, embodied the complexity of life and womanhood with her incredible performance throughout the show. Her portrayal of her conflicted emotions, as well as the contradicting position of being powerful and powerless, added depth to the show, contributing to the overall depiction of the gender landscape in that time and place.
It was refreshing to see the plot focusing almost solely on samurai politics. While the chemistry between Lady Mariko and Blackthorne was depicted unabashedly, the romance never stole the spotlight. Western historical shows tend to focus on main characters’ romance more often, compared to traditional jidaigeki (Japanese period dramas).
Of course, “Shōgun” did not ignore the presence of sexuality or kinship. The big presence of courtesans (sex workers with wealthy clients), the strategic marriage of Ishido and Lady Ochiba and the depiction of Fuji, who was ordered to be Blackthorne’s consort and built a respectful “friendship” with him, were all essential to the plot.
In this era of Japan, the concept of “love,” or lack thereof, differs significantly from the modern day West.
In fact, it is said that the word, “ai” (愛), which is used as an equivalent of English “love” in modern Japanese, would not be used in that sense for a couple hundred years — not until the Meiji period. The distinctions between love, lust, sensuality or sexual desire is arbitrary — especially with little to no influence of Christianity. Rather than forcing the trope of a beautiful romance between the characters, the show subtly navigates the historical and cultural difference while thickening the political plot.
In Episode 3, a doctor suggests that the injured Blackthorne be “pillowed,” as he seemed stressed — which also helps to show how the Japanese viewed the act of sex.
“Would you prefer a male companion?” Mariko asks, after seeing Blackthorne hesitate.
Throughout history in Japan, male-on-male sexual desire was normalized to a degree and coexisted beside heterosexual desire. This one line, which is not foreshadowing and is not elaborated on any further, subtly adds to that context. So many Japanese period dramas ignore this pretty important piece of information, and this moment sets “Shōgun” apart for its detail-rich historical accuracy.
Cultural and historical details are complex — which is exactly why they are hard to nail, but noticeable when they are not done correctly. FX, in its promotion of the series, emphasized its efforts to ensure authenticity, hiring numerous professionals who have worked with Japanese period films.
This authenticity should not just be an added bonus in storytelling. If plotlines or character details are inauthentic, they distract you from the main story. Though fictional films and TV series are not real life, to sell the story and immerse audiences, it must be convincing.
“If something is incorrect, people cannot focus on the drama,” said “Shōgun” star and producer Hiroyuki Sanada in an interview with USA Today. “They don’t want to see that kind of show. We needed to be authentic.”
For those interested in watching Western samurai works, “Shōgun” brings the attention to detail that other works in the genre have never quite matched. For fans of Japanese-made period dramas, the series fills the gap in its scale and world-building.
Sure, it’s based on another white samurai story but, at least it understood the assignment. “Shōgun” has shown us the potential of Hollywood works set in foreign culture, as well as Japanese period films. When the budget is adequate, professionals are hired to ensure cultural authenticity and complex narratives are tackled head-on, something truly groundbreaking can happen.
