Shogun (TV Program)

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    ‘Shogun’: Here’s What to Know About the Record-Breaking Emmy Hit

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    The FX epic ruled TV’s top honors, racking up 18 Emmys for its first season. Here is a brief guide to this saga of samurai warriors and star-crossed lovers.The Emmys have crowned a new overlord.“Shogun” ruled TV’s top honors, racking up a record 18 Emmy Awards for its first season — the most ever for a show in a single year — including wins on Sunday for best drama and for best actor and actress in a drama (Hiroyuki Sanada and Anna Sawai). This makes “Shogun,” created for FX by Rachel Kondo and Justin Marks, the most acclaimed TV show of 2024. But amid all the streaming platforms and shows out there, you can be forgiven if it flew under your radar.“Shogun” is streaming on Hulu. Wondering what all the award-winning fuss is about? Here is a brief guide to this historical epic of samurai warriors and star-crossed lovers. Soon you’ll be ready to stage an all-out assault on your next binge-watch.Where have I heard of ‘Shogun’ before?The FX series is an adaptation of the 1975 novel of the same title by James Clavell. Based on a true story and set in feudal Japan at the beginning of the 17th century, this best-selling work of historical fiction has been adapted into live-action formats twice before: first as a widely watched 1980 NBC television mini-series, then as a short-lived 1990 Broadway musical. Residents of the New York tristate area may remember this commercial for the musical; as for the book, nearly everyone has likely seen it on a family member’s bookshelf.What is ‘Shogun’ about?The first season of “Shogun” — more are in the works — centers on three characters whose relationships will determine the fate of Japan. The first is John Blackthorne (Cosmo Jarvis), a shipwrecked English Protestant and ship’s pilot, or “anjin” in Japanese. He reveals the existence of a global schism in Christianity to the island’s rulers, who have been deliberately kept in the dark by their avaricious Portuguese Catholic trading partners.Richard Chamberlain and Yoko Shimada in the 1980 version of “Shogun,” a ratings hit that was centered on Chamberlain’s character.NBCIn order to survive and to alter the balance of power in Europe, Blackthorne must make his case to Lord Yoshii Toranaga (Hiroyuki Sanada), the man in command of the region. A member of a five-man council that has governed Japan in the name of its child ruler, Toranaga is at odds with its most powerful member, Lord Ishido (Takehiro Hira, who was a nominee for best supporting actor in a drama). The anjin and the weapons aboard his ship may provide Toranaga with the edge he needs to survive his power struggle.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      “Shogun” Emmy Win Lifts FX Past Bigger Rivals

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      The network has been a darling among critics for years. But it hit a new high on Sunday, with “Shogun” winning best drama and “The Bear” picking up several awards as well.When the “Shogun” writer and producer Justin Marks stormed the Emmys stage after his show won best drama on Sunday night, his first order of business was to pay tribute to the people who helped bring him there: the executive team at FX.How, he wondered aloud, did the network approve a show that was extremely expensive, and would be mostly subtitled in Japanese?“I have no idea why you did that, but thank you for your faith in this incredible team,” he said.For roughly two decades, that team at FX has been a darling to television critics with series like “American Horror Story,” “The Americans,” “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia” and “Atlanta.” But the network, with less money at its disposal than rivals such as Netflix and HBO, had never won television’s most prestigious prize, best drama, until Sunday.And that’s not all it won.“Shogun,” an adaptation from a 1975 best-selling book centered on 17th century feudal Japan on the brink of civil war, had a dominant night at the Emmys. It set a record for most Emmys won by a show in a single year, winning 18 in all. It was also the first time a foreign language show (roughly 70 percent of the show was in Japanese) had taken the best drama award that is normally the domain of shows that take place in the United States, the United Kingdom or Westeros.Hiroyuki Sanada in a scene from “Shogun.”Katie Yu/FX, via Associated PressAnother FX show, “The Bear,” won several major Emmys on Sunday night, including three acting awards. But in an upset, Max’s “Hacks” defeated “The Bear” in best comedy series.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      First-Time Emmy Winners, From Jodie Foster to Lamorne Morris

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      Jodie Foster added to her awards collection while the stars of “Shogun” and “Baby Reindeer” helped propel their shows to big nights.Several familiar faces gave acceptance speeches at the Emmy Awards on Sunday night, with Jon Stewart back after a lengthy hiatus from “The Daily Show” and the restaurateurs played by Jeremy Allen White and Ebon Moss-Bachrach cooking yet again for “The Bear.”But much of the night’s excitement came from seeing newcomers take the stage. Here’s what to know about the eight acting winners who received their first Emmys.Best actress in a limited series or TV movieJodie Foster, ‘True Detective’Foster is already a two-time Oscar winner — for her performances in “The Silence of the Lambs” and “The Accused” — but she won her first Emmy for her role as a police chief in “True Detective: Night Country.” Before taking the lead role, Foster hadn’t done substantive television work since her breakthrough role in the 1976 film “Taxi Driver,” when she was barely a teenager. Her two previous Emmy nominations were for directing an episode in the first season of “Orange Is the New Black” and for a producing role in the 1999 television movie “The Baby Dance.”Best supporting actress in a dramaElizabeth Debicki, ‘The Crown’Debicki won for her portrayal of Diana, Princess of Wales, a role that earned her the first two Emmy nominations of her career. Finding her breakthrough in Baz Luhrmann’s 2013 film “The Great Gatsby,” Debicki has had a career largely focused on film, including in the Christopher Nolan movie “Tenet” and “Vita and Virginia,” in which she played the writer Virginia Woolf. “Playing this part based on this unparalleled, incredible human being has been my great privilege,” she said of her role on “The Crown” in her acceptance speech.Best supporting actress in a comedy seriesLiza Colón-Zayas, ‘The Bear’Colón-Zayas has been an actress in film, TV and theater since the 1990s, often appearing in one-episode arcs in series such as “Law & Order” and “Sex and the City” and in Off Broadway plays, nurturing a close collaboration with the playwright Stephen Adly Guirgis. In Tina, a no-nonsense chef in “The Bear,” she found a true breakout role. In her acceptance speech, she thanked the showrunners for the part they played in her late-career success, saying, “Thank you, thank you, thank you for giving me a new life with this show.”Best supporting actor in a limited series or TV movieLamorne Morris, ‘Fargo’We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      ‘Shogun’ Sets Record for Most Emmys Won In a Single Year

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      “Shogun,” the hit FX series that expansively reimagined a hugely popular previous version of the show, took home the Emmy on Sunday for best drama.The win capped a successful evening for the remake, which picked up several other Emmys as the awards ceremony progressed. “Shogun” came into the night leading all programs with 25 Emmy nominations; last weekend, it won 14 Creative Arts Emmys, setting a record for the most Emmy wins by a show in a single year before Sunday’s ceremony even began. On Sunday, it won several more, including Emmys for Hiroyuki Sanada and Anna Sawai, the lead actor and actress in the series. Frederick E.O. Toye also won for outstanding directing.“You guys greenlit a very expensive, subtitled Japanese period piece whose central climax revolves around a poetry competition,” the showrunner Justin Marks said while accepting the best drama award. “I have no idea why you did that, but thank you for your faith in this incredible team.”“Shogun” is a remake of the 1980 NBC mini-series of the same name. And that mini-series was itself an adaptation of the 1975 novel by James Clavell.Set in 17th-century Japan, the story involves an English sailor, John Blackthorne (played by Cosmo Jarvis), who lands in Japan and becomes embroiled in a deadly political conflict involving the shrewd Lord Toranaga (Sanada) and his translator, Lady Mariko (Sawai). Unlike the 1980 mini-series, which was centered on Blackthorne, the new “Shogun” is told primarily through the viewpoints of its main Japanese characters.After its debut in February, many viewers and critics praised the new version’s epic scope and attention to authenticity. It was initially billed as a limited series, but the designation changed when FX announced in May that it was developing additional seasons.Other nominees for best drama included: “3 Body Problem,” “The Crown,” “Fallout,” “The Gilded Age,” “The Morning Show,” “Mr. & Mrs. Smith” and “Slow Horses.” More

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      In ‘Shogun,’ Anna Sawai Drew On the Power of Silence. And Mozart.

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      “It gives me confidence,” she said about her first Emmy nomination, for best actress in a drama. “I have such bad impostor syndrome.”This interview contains major spoilers for Season 1 of “Shogun.”When Anna Sawai was preparing to die, she listened to Mozart.In a key scene of the FX series “Shogun” — in which Toda Mariko, the disgraced but defiant noblewoman and samurai she plays, meets her fiery demise — Sawai delivers a rebellious speech to the sinister Lord Ishido (Takehiro Hira). Lady Mariko knows it doubles as a death sentence. To prepare for this pivotal moment, Sawai said, “I was listening to ‘Requiem K. 626’ — ‘Lacrimosa.’”The music, she said, gave her power. “It really helps you build,” she said in an interview last week. Referring to the director of the episode, Frederick E.O. Toye, she continued: “I remember Fred coming to me multiple times and asking, ‘Do you still have a couple more takes in you?’ I was like: ‘Yeah, this is totally fine. I feel good. Let’s do it.’”Set in feudal Japan and based on the 1975 novel by James Clavell, the first season of “Shogun” focuses largely on the relationship between Sawai’s Lady Mariko and John Blackthorne (Cosmo Jarvis), the temperamental English navigator whose arrival in Japan triggers the conflict that drives the series. That conflict tests Mariko’s Catholic beliefs and her fealty to traditional Japanese customs against her desire for Blackthorne — and for justice against her oppressors. It also leads directly to her death.“People are always like, ‘It must have been tough to prepare for that episode,’” Sawai said. “But I’ve been holding it in for 10 months, and I finally get to let go.”It was the end for Mariko but not for Sawai’s relationship to the character: Her performance, almost entirely in subtitled Japanese, landed her an Emmy nomination for best actress in a drama. A fearless exploration of the emotional chasm between Mariko’s duties and her desires, it is all the more haunting for how much it leaves hidden.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      ‘Shogun’ Leads Emmy Nominations With 25 Nods

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      The FX hit “Shogun,” an ensemble drama set in 17th-century Japan, has been nominated for 25 Emmys, the most of any series this year. The show is in competition for several of the night’s biggest drama categories, including outstanding drama series, lead actor (Hiroyuki Sanada), lead actress (Anna Sawai) and outstanding directing (Frederick E.O. Toye).“Shogun” quickly became a hit after its debut in February, with many viewers and critics praising its epic scope and attention to authenticity. A majority of the American series’s dialogue was in Japanese, and its success is the latest evidence that U.S. viewers are increasingly open to shows with subtitles.An adaptation of the 1975 James Clavell novel, “Shogun” tells the story of an English sailor, John Blackthorne, who lands in Japan and becomes embroiled in a deadly political conflict involving the shrewd Lord Toranaga and his translator, Lady Mariko. Unlike the enormously popular 1980 mini-series version, which was oriented around Blackthorne, the new “Shogun” was told primarily through the viewpoints of its Japanese main characters.“In the 1980 mini-series, the Japanese characters played subsidiary roles in Chamberlain’s journey,” Motoko Rich wrote in The New York Times, referring to Richard Chamberlain, who played the first Blackthorne. (Cosmo Jarvis plays him in the FX series.) “The intermittent Japanese dialogue was not even translated. In large stretches of the new version, by contrast, the Japanese is subtitled, and significant plot lines revolve exclusively around the Japanese principals.”The new version surpassed the older mini-series in number of Emmy nominations, with the 1980 series having received 14.“Shogun” was first billed as a limited series, but the designation changed when FX announced in May that it was developing additional seasons. It could dominate the drama categories in a year that finds the drama side weaker than usual, with last year’s juggernaut, “Succession,” having finished and other past Emmy favorites like “The White Lotus” — another former limited series — and “The Last of Us” set to return in 2025 because of strike delays. More

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      ‘Shogun’ Finale Recap: Mask Off

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      Lord Toranaga’s true plan is finally revealed.Season 1, Episode 10: ‘A Dream of a Dream’Take a look at any of FX’s promotional material for “Shogun,” and one image will stare back: Lord Toranaga (Hiroyuki Sanada), in full samurai armor, his sword drawn as he charges into battle on a white horse. Tattered red banners and a cavalry provide the backdrop. It doesn’t require close reading to determine that he has cried havoc and let slip the dogs of war.It’s also false advertising. There is no culminating battle in the final episode of “Shogun.” Toranaga does not charge into the fray on a white horse, his katana dealing death on all sides. The regents’ armies do not fight among themselves. Lord Ishido is not beaten down in defeat. John Blackthorne does not prove his battlefield mettle to earn his samurai sword. Instead, the episode mimics the leafless branch in the poem Lady Mariko dictated before her death.By now, you may be shouting that the book upon which the show is based doesn’t include a final battle, either. But just as James Clavell, the author of “Shogun,” altered, edited and exaggerated real-world people and events from Japanese history to suit the needs of his novel, the creators of the 2024 television version also altered, edited and exaggerated in turn. They’ve changed character names, shifted points of emphasis from Blackthorne to Japanese characters and so on. For this episode they cut the book’s epilogue, in which Toranaga executes Ishido by burying him up to his neck and leaving him to die of exposure. (Toranaga is a tough cookie, but that act seems a bridge too far for the TV version.) The showrunners don’t mind taking advantage of adaptational freedom when it suits them.Much as I think both the marketing and the writing have deliberately steered audiences to expect an all out action-horror spectacle — in the mode for which the pioneering “Game of Thrones” set a still-unmatched standard on television — the show’s creators Rachel Kondo and Justin Marks, as well as the writers Maegan Houang and Emily Yoshida (not to mention Clavell himself), turn out not to be telling that kind of story.If there’s a through line for how “Shogun” depicts violence, it’s that it’s almost always dirty pool. A Christian lord’s army ambushing another lord’s forces under cover of darkness. A cannon fusillade launched at men given no warning. A nephew attempting to murder his uncle in a brothel. A squad of palace guards, slowly driving an outnumbered woman warrior to exhaustion and defeat. Ninja assassins slaughtering their way through a sleepy household, not once but twice. The entire plot is driven by Blackthorne’s revelation that even the Christian lords’ European allies are secretly building an army with which they intend to take all of Japan unawares.When it comes to violence, nobody here moves out in the open. “Shogun” is consistent in that respect, at least if you ignore the picture on the promos.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      ‘Shogun’: Anna Sawai on Her Character’s Final Transformation

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      In an interview, the actor discusses the most recent episode of the FX drama and how her Lady Mariko “wants to fulfill her purpose.”This interview includes spoilers for the ninth episode of “Shogun.”Her character on “Shogun” has just died, but Anna Sawai doesn’t seem to mind much. If anything, she’s glad we’ve hit the sweeping period drama’s high point. “The last two episodes are very special,” she said, smiling, during a video chat earlier this week. “The men have been physically fighting. The women are fighting their own battles.” Sawai’s character, Lady Mariko, has just fought her last.As a vassal of the powerful Lord Toranaga (Hiroyuki Sanada), Lady Mariko serves as the translator for Toranaga’s unlikely ally, the shipwrecked English navigator John Blackthorne (Cosmo Jarvis). But her reputation has been in tatters ever since her father violated Japanese feudal law and slew the tyrant he was sworn to serve.When she is held captive by the scheming Lord Ishido (Takehiro Hira), Lady Mariko threatens ritual suicide — demanded by tradition, yet an anathema for a devout Catholic such as herself — until her release is granted. When assassins intervene, she makes one last defiant protest, calling herself by her father’s name and blocking a door rigged with explosives. It’s the moment to which the series, and Mariko’s entire life, has built.This explains Sawai’s fondness for such a dark moment. “We get to see Mariko transform,” said the actor, who also currently stars in the generational family drama “Pachinko” and the Godzilla spinoff series “Monarch: Legacy of Monsters.” “She really makes a difference.” These are edited excerpts from the conversation.In her dying declaration, Lady Mariko refers to herself using her father’s surname, Akechi, for the first time in the series. Why was now the moment?In the book, it was “Toda Mariko” — Toda is [her husband] Buntaro’s last name — but we really wanted to feel the presence of her father in why she was doing this. She’d learned that her father wanted her to continue the journey he could not live to do. Until then, she doesn’t really realize what that is.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      ‘Shogun’ Episode 9 Recap: an Army of One

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      Lady Mariko is bound to her orders, which force the hand of Lord Ishido of Lady Ochiba.Season 1, Episode 9: ‘Crimson Sky’It’s a deception by which even the ingenious Lord Toranaga would be impressed. Step one: Spend several episodes of your prestige-drama period piece touting “Crimson Sky,” a battle plan for an all-out assault on a medieval castle the brutality of which frightens even Toranaga himself.Step two: Use “Crimson Sky” as the name for the penultimate episode of your 10-episode mini-series, when both you and the audience know that the penultimate episode is where massive battles tend to happen in prestige-drama period pieces.Step three: Don’t have a battle.Put that way, “Crimson Sky” is a bit of a bait and switch. But to deride it as such is to ignore all the episode delivered in exchange for putting off a climactic confrontation of samurais. It is a riveting look at a woman in extremis, channeling a lifetime of pain into one final incandescent act of strength and sacrifice.After opening with a flashback that shows young Lady Mariko’s desperate to follow her family in death, the episode proper begins with Mariko, Lord Yabushige and John Blackthorne’s arrival in Osaka. The rascally Yabushige continues playing each side against the other, to mixed results, while deepening his unlikely friendship with Blackthorne.Mariko, it soon becomes clear, is there on a very specific mission. Addressing the shocked Council of Regents, led by Lord Ishido but ruled by his fiancée Lady Ochiba, Mariko declares her intention to leave the city the next morning, with Lord Toranaga’s consorts and infant son in tow. Ishido comes up with procedural reasons to delay their departure, or at least he tries to, largely based on Mariko’s own shockingly indecorous behavior in court.Proudly declaring herself the daughter of the disgraced Lord Akechi Jinsai and heir to a thousand years of samurai tradition, she declares, “I will never be captive, or hostage, or confined. I am free to go as I please, as is anyone.” She says this from the center of the frame, with her eyes pointed at the camera. The staging is clear: It all comes down to her.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More