I had half-written this post a couple of months ago when I watched it but didn’t complete it, but now that Shōgun was back in news for the Emmys, I decided to finish it.
It scored 18 Emmys, making an all-time record for a single season of TV show, winning:
- Best Drama
- Best Directing
- Best Sound Mixing
- Best Sound Editing
- Best Picture Editing
- Best Cinematography
- Best Period Costumes
- Best Main Title Design
- Best Production Design
- Best Prosthetic Makeup
- Best Stunt Performance
- Best Casting for a Drama
- Best Special Visual Effects
- Best Period/Fantasy Makeup
- Best Period/Fantasy Hairstyling
- Best Lead Actress (Anna Sawai)
- Best Lead Actor (Hiroyuki Sanada)
- Best Guest Actor in a Drama (Néstor Carbonell)
Shōgun is a fantastic East-meets-West project based on a 1975 novel by James Clavell. There was a TV mini series that aired in the 80s, that most were unaware of as well. But this time, with big budgets and extraordinary cinematography, it has made a bigger impression on the pop world.
Many have compared Shōgun with Game of Thrones, which is our general benchmark for rating anything based on older empires, real or fictional, and it does have a lot of gory and gruesome death like GoT, but unlike GoT, Shōgun has dabbled deeper in the philosophy of life and death, purpose of living and many other things. Obviously, it has more to do with the fact that the show is based in an eastern country, and we tend to be more philosophical in our history as well as mythologies. This gives a lot of depth to the show so that it’s not just about battles and throne.
The show has tried to showcase the philosophy of surrendering to life instead of trying to control and react to every part of it really well. My favourite quote is: “If You Seek Individual Freedom, You’ll Never Be Free From Yourself” and “Death is in our air and sea and earth, it can come for us at any moment… We live and we die, we control nothing beyond that..”
The other thing I really liked about the show is that they didn’t try to shy away from touching the customs, the mindset and the social hierarchy which will be considered highly problematic in today’s world. They didn’t try to paint the protagonist as some sort of revolutionary that’s going to solve all the societal problems. They haven’t even tried to be apologetic while showing these problematic things, they own their past in the story-line.
Lady Mariko is one of the best written female characters I’ve seen on screen in a while, who works as a translator between an English sailor and a Japanese lord. Speaking of translation, go watch this amazing video talking about how Shōgun has made work of translation exciting for films to come.
Also, go watch Shōgun!!
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