03/04/2024 – Made It – With Eyes East

It’s March now, so we’re nearing the end of the first quarter of our entertainment year, which is exactly how entertainment is measured. I have to say, of the titles I previewed in this earlier post, not one that I’ve seen has been good. I like Gyeongsong Creature, but it’s so deeply flawed that the flaws become its very substance, for one’s acceptance or rejection — I don’t think it cares either way. I found Echo to be empty, and True Detective: Night Country uneventful. One show I did not list was FX/Hulu’s Shogun, something I’d seen in snippets last year for my job and assumed, when it made landfall, it would be brushed off as hoary-old white-savior nonsense. Wow, how wrong I was.

Instead, as the premiere drew closer, I started hearing everyone talking about it. Everyone. Family members, friends — online, I read that the original novel and miniseries were a cultural phenomenon, and the early raves for the 2024 edition seemed to suggest a repeat of history. For my own edification, I canceled my cancelation of Hulu and even started reading the book — and I like it — but what I’m really trying to figure out is, what makes Shogun so special? What is it about this story that gives it, basically, the Avatar effect?

Watching behind-the-scenes material and interviews with the production team, I learned that Cosmo Jarvis’s voice is not at all like John Blackthorne’s, and I was particularly touched by how much the Japanese cast wanted to “tell this story correctly.” Of course, that begins from the top down, as this Variety article discusses. The showrunners wanted to shift the focal point of the narrative from Englishman Blackthorne to Hiroyuki Sanada’s Toranaga, and unlike the miniseries, provide subtitles for the Japanese dialogue.

I was especially struck by Anna Sawai’s appearance on Jimmy Kimmel. Shogun is the first time I’ve seen her in anything, but I know she was in Pachinko and Monarch: Legacy of Monsters, which are both shows where her being Japanese was part of the role. She was also in Ninja Assassin and the British show Giri/Haji, so this seems to be a recurring theme. I’d call Shogun her breakthrough role, and it is perhaps the most Japanese.

On Jimmy Kimmel, she gives a language lesson — distinguishing between modern and period Japanese — talks about (and demonstrates) what it’s like to wear a kimono, and is asked where she’s from (initially New Zealand, and then everywhere). Watching this — bearing it, these kinds of interviews are so awkward — I began thinking about a theoretical Japanese actor from a previous generation, insisting somehow that their being Japanese wasn’t their defining characteristic.

But Sawai, like the rest of the cast and crew, is all in on this project, both Shogun and the additional layer of honoring — forgive me — the Japaneseness of the story. So I don’t know if Sawai’s promotional performance is a kind of reclamation, saying that, actually, being Japanese is important enough to possibly be defining, or if it’s part of this larger project. Her career is about to blow up, so we’ll see what’s next. Is she gonna keep playing Very Asian characters, or respond to less specific casting calls?

I, for one, am ready for Japan’s big comeback in America. Godzilla Minus One? The Boy and the Heron? Even Shogun? We’ve suffered under the tyranny of Korean pop culture for far too long, I say. Far too long! And, you know, these two things can’t possibly coexist.