Rating: 
Summary: Lousy film adaptation
Review: I love Clavell, the books are great! I've liked some of the on screen adaptations of his novels. King Rat was ok. Noble House could have been better, and the Complete Shogun was more than good. Tai-Pan falls short in so many ways. The screenplay follows the book like some maze running mouse on and acid high. Characters are omitted, continuity is forgotten and if Bryan Brown gets anywhere near a Scotish accent please let me know. I realize Clavell novels don't lend themselves to 2 hour films, except for King Rat which is the shortest I've found, but give me a break. My advice is stay away from this, stick with the book, and hope they do a Mini-series some day.
Rating:
Summary: Lousy film adaptation
Review: I love Clavell, the books are great! I've liked some of the on screen adaptations of his novels. King Rat was ok. Noble House could have been better, and the Complete Shogun was more than good. Tai-Pan falls short in so many ways. The screenplay follows the book like some maze running mouse on and acid high. Characters are omitted, continuity is forgotten and if Bryan Brown gets anywhere near a Scotish accent please let me know. I realize Clavell novels don't lend themselves to 2 hour films, except for King Rat which is the shortest I've found, but give me a break. My advice is stay away from this, stick with the book, and hope they do a Mini-series some day.
Rating:
Summary: Probably the worst movie I've ever seen...
Review: I remember seeing the 12 or so hour miniseries of "Shogun" many years ago. I loved it, read the book and loved it, so when I saw "Tai Pan", I figured it'd live up to the standard of Shogun. I could not have been more wrong. This is a meandering, confusing mess which seems to relish pointless violence against women. I have never read the book, but I plan on doing so, simply so that I can figure out what the movie was attempting to convey. There are very, very, very few movies I actually hate. This undoubtedly was one of them.
Rating:
Summary: Probably the worst movie I've ever seen...
Review: I remember seeing the 12 or so hour miniseries of "Shogun" many years ago. I loved it, read the book and loved it, so when I saw "Tai Pan", I figured it'd live up to the standard of Shogun. I could not have been more wrong. This is a meandering, confusing mess which seems to relish pointless violence against women. I have never read the book, but I plan on doing so, simply so that I can figure out what the movie was attempting to convey. There are very, very, very few movies I actually hate. This undoubtedly was one of them.
Rating:
Summary: Horrible Take on Excellent Book
Review: Tai-Pan by James Clavell is a wonderfully masterful work of historic fiction that should have stayed that way; at least until someone with actual talent has a vision with this exciting tale. I don't know who thought that Daryl Duke could direct a movie, but whoever it was was sorely wrong. Every beautifully tense scene layed out by Clavell is mutilated into the boringest and confusing piece of dog **** I have ever seen. Do your self a favor : forget this movie, read the book!
Rating: 
Summary: Tai-Pan good movie
Review: Tai-pan is a great movie with history and about other cultures .. Bryan brown is great.. Janine Turner from Nothern Exposure did a great job as well . and I think his name is John Stanton is super!! A must see Video..
Rating: 
Summary: A great story
Review: Tai-Pan is an excellent movie. The plot is great - the historical establishment of the British colony of Hong Kong, but from a very personal view. The characters were very well done, and Joan Chen was, as usual, wonderful. The movie is not an action-filled adventure, but rather it moves along at a nice steady pace, and not too slow. I enjoyed this movie very much, and recommend it for anyone who enjoys movies with an historical base.
Rating:
Summary: horrible movie, good book
Review: The book is hundreds and hundreds of pages long. I don't know how they expected to do it justice in 2 hours. Changes were made in the film to be more titillating (though the book already has its' racy moments). For example, in the book most of the prostitues are Europeans and Australians from the lower classes and are not described as attractive. In the movie the prostitues are nubile Asians.
Rating: 
Summary: Excellent story - poor recording
Review: This is James Clavell's wonderful story of the creation of Hong Kong. Unfortunately, the recording was a bitter disappointment. The first clue was the fact that the movie is over two hours long and the amount of tape use was 1/3 of the usual VCR tape. Sure enough, there was a note the the movie was recorded in EP. Shame on Video Treasures and Anchor Bay Distribution for a shoddy attempt at recording a wonderful novel. I was wanting a copy to add to my collection of Nobel House and Shogun (both Excellent Clavell stories) and was so disappointed to have such a poor recording. That said, I must say that the movie itself does a fairly good job of recreating the novel. It is probably worth the purchase price. I just wish that they had made a better copy and not tried to cut costs to the bone. Do yourself a favor - buy the book and the tape so that you can immerse your self in the novel and use your imagination to create the "movie" the way James Clavell intended.
Rating:
Summary: Should Have Been A Miniseries
Review: This movie is way too short for all of the grand characters, plot elements, and for that matter, historic spectacle that the film tries, but ultimately fails, to deliver.A fictionalized account of the Opium Wars & the British acquisition of Hong-Kong in the 1840's, this adaptation of the James Clavell novel of the same name would have been much better as a one-week to two-week long mini-series. Imagine "Roots", "The Thorn Birds" (which incidentally has Bryan Brown in it), or "North & South" condensed into two hours! It just wouldn't work! Check out the 2-hour version of Clavell's "Shogun" & compare it to the un-condensed mini-series. You'll know what I'm talking about! The result is characters who we should seriously care about....but don't, situations that we should be familiar with....but aren't. If you're trying to take this movie seriously, the story can be downright confusing! However, this movie is still worth watching, mostly because of the larger than life characterizations, the obviously politically-incorrect depictions of women & minorities (though I'm not a woman, I am of Chinese descent, so I can laugh at this whole thing!), & the incredibly bad dialogue! Add to this, lots of sexual depravity depicted in the film's characters (including the protagonists, people we should root for!) & what have you got? A movie that's so bad, it's actually fun to watch! If you like bad movies like I do (and in this case, a big-budget historical spectacle with B-movie performances), this movie ranks right up there alongside the classic "Cleopatra" (1963, with Liz Taylor.) The soundtrack music is great, the costumes & sets are lavish, & at least, it's not boring! (There's lots of action & intrigue.) Watch "Tai-Pan"....for a good laugh! (By the way, for you Hong-Kong kung-fu movie fans, yes, that is Chen Kwan Tai of Shaw Brothers/Iron Monkey fame, as the pirate named "Wong" who tries to rob Bryan Brown with a pistol, only to get slashed with a knife! Hey, if he was the star, maybe he would have won!)
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