Rating: 
Summary: Excellent transfer
Review: I would let the readers read other reviews on the movie itself and I would only comment on the transfer. I am pleasantly surprised by the excellent quality of the transfer, Paramount should should be commended. The image is very sharp and the fleshtone is very natural. The image is still sharp even when I use the letterbox zoom on my 42-in plasma to view it.
There are no breaks and the series is one continuous 10-hour long story, personally, I prefer it this way. I wish Shaka Zulu was like that too.
Rating: 
Summary: A very good DVD set
Review: For those of us who grew up only remembering Chamberlain as Alan Quartermain (I'm sure I've butchered the names!), this DVD is a bit of a shock. First and foremost, after having recently read Shogun, I could never have cast him as the lead.That being said, the movie was very well done for an early 80's TV series. My wife and I had recently both read Shogun, and we thought it would be fun to rent the movie. While looking for something else entirely, I stumbled upon the DVD set, and bought it for my wife's upcoming birthday. We have young ones, so it did take several days to get through the whole series. Of course, at better than 500 minutes, it will take anyone several days to view! Just to complain, I am upset at several aspects of the series. It seems to ignore details that I would think would be integral to the story (Ishido's plans, Toranaga's internal monlogue, etc. -- basically, that which provides the backbone to the book!), while spending 45 minutes on Blackthorne's issues over his gardener dying by his own decree. I understand that Clavell produced the TV series, so who am I to underscore the author? Still, the book is bigger, much less ambiguous, much more involved in the motives of the charachters. This, I feel, is what made Shogun great. The series is acurate to a point, but always seems to deviate where I would think a succinct description of the situation would suffice. That being said, my wife for one loved the casting. The production is very good (if you can get past Blackthorne and crew sailing in what looks like a Disney soapbox racer, supposedly the Erasmus). The story is pretty darn close to the book (excepting omissions). The acting and scenery are mostly great. What I like best is that everything is in Japanese, causing the viewer, much like Blackthorne, to wonder what, exactly, is being said for a great deal of the movie. They could have added subtitles, but I think the ambiguity is a nice touch. I seem to have been quite hard on this title, but truth be told I watched all 300+ hours (or whatever! :) ) completely enraptured. I would definately recommend this to anyone who hasn;t read the book. To those who have, I would say this will bring back poingant memories of the narative, if not the whole story. The experience is at least worth the 4 stars rated. Enjoy!
Rating:
Summary: Certainly worth the wait
Review: Having seen and enjoyed this mini-series so much on TV, I couldn't wait for it to come out on DVD. It is facinating how one feels well introduced to the Japanese culture during this tale. Extremely good entertainment!
Rating:
Summary: Excellent, excellent. A look at a different culture
Review: This is an excellent offering. We had to watch this in a history class in high school. I was oh so not thrilled about it before hand, but I found myself invested in the storyline. We learned so very much about Japanese culture--ancient Japan anyway--and it raised a lot of questions about behavior, motivation, and problem solving. Just an excellent excellent piece of work.
Rating:
Summary: Shogun DVD at last!!!
Review: I've been holding on for the DVD release of Shogun for a few years now. Finally back in Sept. my wait was over. I remember watching this series as a child on TV. Ever since then it has touched me in my early years and lasted into my adult life. Now much older I got to enjoy it all over again and I think have a better understanding. Having both lived in Japan and visited 8 times now I can say they do a semi-good job for ŠO'l. If you like loves stories, mixed with Samurai action and those mixed into a strange culture learning films you'll enjoy this one. Also you can actually learn a little Japanese in one of the episodes if you pay attention to whats being taught.
Rating:
Summary: SHOGUN - A Gaijin perspective
Review: I lived in Japan for six years. I studied judo, karate, and kendo, and have black belt rank in the latter two. I studied the Japanese language and customs. My wife is from Japan. Thus, I am quite familiar with that unique culture. I first read SHOGUN when it first came out, and saw the entire series (taped by a family member and sent to us overseas) on a not-so-good VHS copy on the not-so-good VHS tape of the 1980's era. What a joy to now see it, crystal-clear picture with crystal-clear sound! The DVD version (full production) is superb, it's like seeing it for the very first time. To be remembered: SHOGUN is NOT an entirely accurate historical event, IT IS A STORY. It should be viewed from that perspective: a story. Sit back, don't get all entangled in looking for historical or production glitches (the challenges of making this production a reality are fully covered in accompanying presentations as part of the package), and enjoy a very good STORY ... and excellent entertainment. For SO many Americans, SHOGUN was their first introduction to a wonderful culture and similarly wonderful people. Sayonara.
Rating:
Summary: Great presentation of an excellent story
Review: "Shogun" remains one of my favorite novels and TV events. The adaptation is amazing in capturing the flavor and overall story line of a novel rich in detail. This is a great presentation, I don't recall any "missing" content, but then the original on NBC was many years ago. This is the same version that recently aired on the Hallmark channel far as I can tell. Just a comment about the previous review on "bad Japanese by Westerners." The character Rodrigues (John Rhys-Davies) SHOULD be speaking bad Japanese. It shows his disdain for the culture in general and demonstates his ethnocentric outlook. Same reason he calls them monkeys and toadies. Yes, some of the Jesuit priests speak it poorly, Father Alvito should have a more natural accent having grown up in Japan but the actor does a good job.
Rating: 
Summary: How do you say "anticlimax" in Japanese?
Review: Shogun is a disappointment. There is some entertainment value in seeing feudal Japan brought to life in an American miniseries, but as with a dog walking on its hind legs, it's impressive not because it is done well, but because it is done at all. Throughout Shogun, the limited budget of a TV production is evident. An opening scene with a ship weathering a storm includes shots of an obvious set with "rain" being splashed on it. Later on, an "earthquake" is created by shaking the camera and having a few dusty trenches cave in. But Shogun's worst, most unforgivable sin is its ending. Without giving away spoliers, I can say that this entire mammoth miniseries builds to a climactic battle between two samurai armies, and then when that point is reached, the battle is NOT EVEN SHOWN. Instead, we get Orson Welles narrating that the battle was really exciting, take his word for it. Thanks, Orson, but I wanted to see the clashing armies, not just hear you tell me it happened. Similarly, an attack by Blackthorne's ship on the Jesuit's "Black Ship" is constantly talked about and forshadowed... but never happens. Moreover, the ending fails to provide any sort of meaningful resolution for the main character, Blackthorne, who is left thinking he'll succeed in a plan that we learn is doomed to failure. We learn that because Orson Welles doesn't just narrate, he also speaks the Japanese characters' thoughts and repeats their dialogue in English. Instead of subtitles, sometimes you'll hear two Japanese actors talking to each other, and then their voices fade down and Orson starts telling you what they're saying to each other. A jarring effect, and unnecessary -- subtitles would have been better. But even if subtitles had been used, the viewer, after investing hours of his time in this story, would still be left feeling cheated by its failure to have any kind of dramatic payoff. Another flaw is the poor Japanese spoken by some of the Western actors. While Richard Chamberlain's Blackthorne is supposed to be learning the language, others like John Rhys-Davies' Rodrigues should speak it better than they do. It is so bad that it becomes distracting and had me laughing at the screen, Shogun is frustrating because the potential for a more interesting story was there. But after setting up a complex scenario with Jesuits, Toranaga, Ishido, and Blackthorne and his crew all competing for advantage, Shogun spectactuarly fails to deliver. Shogun is at least packaged well as a DVD set. The first four discs contain the main feature, and fifth disc includes a fairly interesting "making of" documentary. It's just a shame Shogun itself isn't more thrilling.
Rating:
Summary: I've Waited For This For Years!
Review: I've waited for years for Shogun to be released on DVD, and I'm delighted with it. Yes, a booklet with information and chapter listings would have been nice, but that's probably not going to be a dealbreaker for many people. I'd like to know what some of the other reviewers think was deleted in this edition. I was very familiar with the miniseries, having seen it several times and having taped it at the time on an old Betamax, and I didn't notice anything missing in the DVD edition...except that accidental helicopter shadow! Nothing that I expected to see was gone. As an earlier customer pointed out, the original show ran for 12 hours on NBC because of all the commercials, network promos, opening titles and closing credits in every segment, etc. Take out all that padding, and 9 hours of actual program content sounds about right. If anybody can identify any actual deletions, I'd be interested in hearing what they are. I would have liked to have seen the brief nude scenes of Mariko in the bath included as much as the next guy. But they were only in the European version anyway. (Americans are considered by the world to be backward children in these matters.) They were never in the American version, so although they would have been a welcome bonus, we can't say they were "deleted." It was a real pleasure to start playing Shogun when the DVD package arrived, and Amazon.com had the best price for it that I could find, so that was an added benefit. Never had I seen it with the sharpness and clarity of the DVD. Maybe it took the advent of DVD to do justice to what is, for me, the greatest of all miniseries.
Rating:
Summary: Best Movie mini series of all Time
Review: This movie is for all the action fans, love story fans and people who just love samuri movies. The Traditions that this movie shows and the different views of culture is told so amazingly that it just draws you in more. This is my favorite movie ever.
| 
