Set against religious and political tensions in feudal Japan, one leader’s ambitions to become Shōgun are aided by a courageous translator and a marooned Englishman with an agenda of his own. Our spoiler-filled review dives into why Shōgun 2024 has been such a hit for Hulu and Disney+.
Shōgun (2024)
Charlotte Brändström (director), Takeshi Fukunaga (director), Shannon Goss (writer), Maegan Houang (writer), Hiromi Kamata (director), Rachel Kondo (writer), Emmanuel Osei-Kuffour (director), Matt Lambert (writer), Justin Marks (writer), Caillin Puente (writer), Frederick E.O. Toye (director), Jonathan van Tulleken (director), Nigel Williams (writer), Emily Yoshida (writer), James Clavell (novel)
Hiroyuki Sanada, Cosmo Jarvis, Anna Sawai, Tadanobu Asano, Takehiro Hira, Tommy Bastow, Fumi Nikaido (cast)
February 27, 2024
This review contains spoilers.
Shōgun (2024) is based on the 1975 novel of the same name by James Clavell, which had already been adapted into a miniseries in 1980. Clavell’s novel is a fictionalized version of real historical events, the establishment of the Tokugawa Shogunate by Tokugawa Ieyasu, and the life of British navigator William Adams. Clavell’s daughter, Michaela, served as executive producer on the 2024 show and was part of the team instrumental in bringing the new adaptation to the screen.
The story of Shōgun follows the political machinations of Lord Yoshii Toranaga (Hiroyuki Sanada) as he aspires to keep his life and possibly become Japan’s Shōgun while facing off against a council of self-serving regents. Toranaga’s plans are given a sudden boost by the arrival of John Blackthorne (Cosmo Jarvis), a seafarer from England stranded in Japan. Blackthorne, addressed throughout the show as Anjin (or pilot), brings with him naval skills and knowledge of cannons that Toranaga needs to win against the regents. Also by Toranaga’s side is the loyal but troubled Mariko (Anna Sawai), a Christian convert fluent in Japanese, Portuguese, and Latin, and who comes to serve as a translator and strategist in Toranaga’s court. This trio must not only outwit each other, but also the regents and the mother of the heir, Ochiba no Kata (Fumi Nikaido), all while finding allies and traitors in surprising places.
When I first saw the trailer for Shōgun 2024, I was intrigued, but mostly because actor Hiroyuki Sanada was in it. Sanada was also a producer on the show and heavily involved in refining its depiction of Japan. A stalwart of Japanese cinema who’s been in samurai films since the ’70s, Sanada is always a captivating actor. (English-speaking audiences might know him from The Last Samurai, 47 Ronin, The Wolverine, or most recently, John Wick 4). This left me wondering whether the rest of the cast would be able to match his screen presence.
But my connection, so to speak, with Shōgun was established a few years ago. I haven’t read the book, though my dad is a huge fan—the tome would glare at me from the dining room bookshelf for years, yet I didn’t dare grapple with a book that size at that point in my life. I did, however, see part of the 1980 show. Again, my dad, as a big fan of the book, got hold of the miniseries Blu-ray, which included several behind-the-scenes featurettes. For a week at least, nothing played on our TV except Shōgun, the show and the BTS interviews. For some reason, I recall more of the BTS interviews than the actual show, and though I’ve since considered watching the show in full I moved away from home and didn’t get the opportunity. The 2024 Shōgun remake, and Sanada, were the invitations I was waiting for.
I was on the fence after the pilot episode of Shōgun 2024—it was gory in ways that the 1980s pilot hadn’t been, and I didn’t know if I could handle more of it. I also just wasn’t sold on Cosmo Jarvis as Blackthorne, who is essentially the lead character of Shōgun. The 1980s show was ably led by Richard Chamberlain, who I quite enjoyed watching. Jarvis seemed wooden to me, his affectations were less like character ticks and more the signs of an actor out of his depth.
Despite my misgivings, I sensed that Shōgun 2024 would be about more than just Blackthorne, so I decided to keep watching. And I’m glad I did. Unlike the 1980 show, this new version tells Clavell’s reimagined history through the eyes of its Japanese characters. And it is so much the better for it.
Expectedly, the sets, costumes, and locations in Shōgun are stunning—they had the budget and used it. I’ve read that there were Japanese consultants in every department to ensure accuracy, and you can see the attention to detail in the attire, especially the hair. It’s stunning work well worth the effort because it beautifully realised the world of feudal Japan.
However, like many Disney+ shows, there are several scenes where you can tell the background is a green screen with VFX, particularly obvious for the scenes set on ships. I always find this jarring, and I wish there wasn’t such a heavy reliance on it, especially because when the show moved to real locales, they were breathtaking in their beauty and scale.
But it was the characters, and subsequently, the acting, in Shōgun that captivated me. The dynamics between the nobility and the samurai, the men and the women, and the spanner in the works that is Blackthorne, kept me coming back for more. I actually wish I’d watched the show as it aired, but I would miss weeks and then watch two or three episodes at a time. Such is life.
Sanada’s Toranaga bookends the series, a prominent figure in the pilot and the finale, showing his growth from a reluctant leader to a shrewd strategist who isn’t afraid to make hard sacrifices in the hopes of lasting peace. Sanada is a force to reckon with in this role. His Toranaga is silent yet deadly, cunning, and sometimes hard to understand because he keeps things so close to his chest, as one does when surrounded by enemies. Every scene with Sanada is a masterclass in acting, whether Toranaga is joking with his wife or chastising his subjects, frequently Kashigi Yabushige (Tadanobu Asano), a right-hand man who is deeply untrustworthy. Sanada is a delight to watch.
Speaking of Asano, I believe I’ve only ever seen him in the Thor films, where he was criminally underused. He is superlative in Shōgun. Asano plays Yabushige as a weaselly eccentric who is happy to sell his services to the highest bidder. Yabushige’s loyalty changes from episode to episode but he largely remains faithful to himself. In any other show, Yabushige would have been given an ignominious end, yet Shōgun affords a character as layered as this a meaningful demise. Nobody will shed a tear for Yabushige, but we sure as hell will miss him.
Jarvis’ Blackthorne doesn’t have as large a role as Chamberlain’s, but he is still a mighty presence in the plot, mainly because he’s quite tall. I’m afraid his acting left much to be desired. I couldn’t look past his woodenness and felt his facial expressions never matched his eyes, which were not at all expressive. There were two scenes in the 1980 show where Chamberlain impressed me and, because of that prior reference, Jarvis’ performance let me down. One was the micturition scene in the pilot, where Jarvis failed to capture the utter humiliation that Blackthorne would have suffered. The second was in the following episode. This wasn’t entirely Jarvis’ fault, maybe? In the 1980 series, Chamberlain’s Blackthorne causes a distraction by singing and dancing down a long and winding set of stairs. In the BTS I watched, Chamberlain spoke about being completely out of breath and having to gear up for another take. In the 2024 Shōgun, there are no stairs, so Jarvis’ Blackthorne simply acts wild and starts talking loudly to distract the guards. It just didn’t work for me, and Jarvis looked uncomfortable doing the scene.
I was disappointed in Jarvis… up until the finale! I don’t why it took so long but goodness, did Jarvis act his heart out in that final episode. The tears he shed, or tried not to, were so moving. It felt like he’d finally grasped what made Blackthorne tick, but why did it take so long? For me, Jarvis was the least effective cast member, and I wanted his scenes to end quickly.
Which brings me to the most impactful role in Shōgun—Anna Sawai as Toda Mariko. Oh wow. I watched Sawai recently in Monarch: Legacy of Monsters, where she was good. But in Shōgun? She’s incredible. Sawai had big shoes to fill—in 1980, the role of Mariko was played by Yoko Shimada, to much acclaim. In the BTS I watched, Shimada spoke about her English dialect coach pulling her tongue out so she could pronounce English better. Sawai, fortunately, is fluent in English and Japanese and did not have to suffer such indignities. I can safely say Sawai more than lived up to the task the late Shimada set. Mariko couldn’t have been an easy character to play. Based on the very real Hosokawa Gracia (formerly Akechi Tama), Mariko is a woman haunted by a past she had no control over. Mariko’s father was deemed a traitor for killing the ruling lord, and that label followed Mariko ever since.
But it isn’t just her father’s crime that follows her; it’s the fact that Mariko is the only survivor of her family. While her father and the rest of her family were allowed to kill themselves, Mariko, having been married off, wasn’t given the same allowance. Throughout Shōgun, Mariko makes it very clear that she welcomes death, but it must be meaningful. It’s the reason she hates her husband, Buntaro, played smarmily well by Shinnosuke Abe. Buntaro wouldn’t allow Mariko to commit seppuku (ritual suicide), and for that, Mariko refuses to forgive him.
I was impressed by the way Shōgun grappled with Mariko’s desperation for martyrdom. It’s not a concept that is easy to understand, especially in cultures not steeped in rituals, but Sawai ably grasps not only Mariko’s desire for a meaningful death but what it means for Mariko to have to keep on living when she desperately wants to die.
I’m also weirdly relieved that Mariko gets to realise her dream of being martyred. I know a lot of people are going to struggle with this but, for one, Gracia, who Mariko is based on, vocally shared the same desire for martyrdom. And secondly, everybody has different relationships to death. I find that most often in the world of entertainment when a character wants or welcomes death, they’re portrayed as being in the wrong. Or somehow, love saves them. It made me think of the 2022 film, Next Exit, starring Katie Parker and Rahul Kohli, about two strangers on their way to commit suicide. (Spoilers for a two-year-old film—by the end of the film, both strangers decide against it because they’ve found meaning in each other. But they don’t have the means or money to keep living, so how is that going to work out for them? End spoiler.)
What’s intriguing about Shōgun is that, if seen through the eyes of Blackthorne, Mariko has plenty of meaning in her life—she has a son, and she’s serving Toranaga to bring about peace in Japan. She even, in some ways, finds a new love in Blackthorne, who is completely smitten by her. Though Mariko never divulges her feelings in words, they have a passionate moment near the end of the series. Yet, Mariko has her primary mission—to join her family in death and avenge her family name. She is a powerhouse in Shōgun—ice cold with Buntaro, even after his beautiful tea ceremony, loyal and strategic with Toranaga, even when he’s lost the trust of his closest courtiers, wily and chastising with Blackthorne, yet amiable with her friends. Through poetic dialogue delivery and expressions of steel, Sawai conveys exactly why life isn’t as meaningful to Mariko as death is.
Shōgun dedicates the entirety of the penultimate episode, ‘Crimson Sky,’ to Mariko’s quest. She finds herself constantly on the brink of achieving her goal, but is denied until she finally gets her wish. It’s a spectacular and heartbreaking ending to a character who has given away nothing to those around her but has been so completely transparent with the audience. I am surprised and in awe that we got to see a character like Mariko on Disney+, and that she was so brilliantly acted by Sawai. Hers is a career I’m now very keen to follow.
With all the death and gore, Shōgun is easy to dismiss as a war epic. But despite its war aesthetics, Shōgun is so often poetic that I strongly believe the writers were trying to make a poem into a TV show. I’m kidding, but the dialogue in this show is beautiful. Some characters, particularly Mariko, share impromptu haikus and recite poetry with each other. But there are poetic scenes that bookend character journeys and arcs. “Flowers are only flowers because they fall,” says Mariko in episode 9, and Ochiba, Mariko’s one-time closest friend, completes the poem in the finale with “But thankfully, the wind.” Excuse me, I need a minute.
I have become a cynic as I’ve got older. I keep feeling like films and TV used to bring more joy and escapism before than they do now. The endless, inescapable discourse online doesn’t help. But when I watch a show like Shōgun, I am reminded about the power of television to be educational while entertaining. I was enthralled by this show, even though the first episode left me wanting more. We are unlikely to get a second season because these 10 episodes covered the entirety of the book. But that’s fine because this miniseries captured the grandeur and the stakes, and showcased an engaging set of characters. Though gory at times, the political strategies and character dynamics more than made up for any squeamishness. I’m so glad I stuck with this show—that finale, without a single action scene, was the most perfect send-off a show could ask for. How long till we encounter another story of this calibre on our screens again?
