Tai-pan Movie Streaming

[Aide Broeckel]

TaiPan is a 1986 adventure drama film directed by Daryl Duke, loosely based on James Clavell's 1966 novel of the same name. While many of the same characters and plot twists are maintained, a few smaller occurrences are left out. Filmed under communist Chinese censorship, some portions of Clavell's story were considered too offensive to be filmed as written and considerable changes were made.

The De Laurentiis Entertainment Group handled the production and were actively seen battling the Chinese Government and Labor boards over the film during shooting. The film was a critical and box office bomb. Duke believed that a mini-series la 1980's Shōgun or 1988's Noble House would have been a far superior means of covering the complexity of Clavell's novel.

In 1842, the British have achieved victory of the First Opium War and seized Hong Kong. Although the island is largely uninhabited and the terrain unfriendly, it has a large port that both the British government and various trading companies believe will be useful for the import of merchandise to be traded on mainland China, a highly lucrative market.

Although the film features many characters, it is arguably Dirk Struan and Tyler Brock, former shipmates and the owners of two massive (fictional) trading companies who are the main focal points of the story. Their rocky and often abusive relationship as seamen initiated an intense amount of competitive tension.

Throughout, both men seek to destroy each other in matters of business and personal affairs. Struan is referred to as tai-pan (which author Clavell translates as "Supreme Leader", although this is not the accepted translation of the term) indicating his position as head of the largest and most profitable of all the trading companies operating in Asia. Brock, owner of the second largest of the trading companies, constantly vies to destroy Struan's company and reputation in an attempt to both exact revenge on Struan and become the new "Tai-Pan" of Chinese trade.

While the film follows a similar structure as the novel, one major and notable event is left out. Struan's meeting with Jin Qua early in the film to obtain the forty lac dollars of silver to pay Brock omits Jin Qua's stipulation that four special coins be broken in half, with Struan keeping four halves and the other four being distributed by Jin Qua. When a half coin is presented to Struan that matches his own half, he is obligated to do a favor to the bearer. The first favor is called in later in the novel, by the pirate Wu Kwok. The film does not convey this.

Martin Ransohoff of Filmways bought the rights in 1966 in conjunction with MGM for $500,000 plus a percentage of the profits. Clavell would write the script and co-produce.[5][6] At the time Clavell was also working as a filmmaker, directing Sidney Poitier in To Sir, with Love.

Patrick McGoohan was announced to play Dirk Struan (the first of a two-picture deal he had with MGM) with Michael Anderson attached to direct. Carlo Ponti came in as co-producer. However the movie would have cost an estimated $26 million (later reduced to $20 million[7]) and was postponed.[8][9] It lingered on for a number of years before being finally cancelled when James T. Aubrey took over as president and cancelled the project.[10]

Roger Moore became briefly attached, with John Guillermin mentioned as director of a possible mini-series. However finance could not be arranged. Moore said: "If it's offered to me again I'll do it". Quite frankly, it's one of the best scripts I've ever read".[16] For a time Sean Connery was mooted as star for director Martin Ritt. "I've always wanted Sean to do it", said Clavell.[17]

The popularity of the novel and TV series of Shōgun made Tai Pan continually attractive to filmmakers. In late 1983 Dino De Laurentiis bought the rights.[19] He set up the film with Orion.[20] Sean Connery turned down the lead role.

Clavell expressed disappointment with the film adaptation: "I haven't seen the film. It just hasn't been convenient for me to see it... I would like to get the rights to my book back and turn it into a mini-series".[27]

Can't say I'm all excited about a season two of Mr. and Mrs. Smith. without Glover and Erskine. Their chemistry was the only thing that dragged me to the season finish. The "Smithverse" isn't much more than a collection of dumb, spy tropes. It makes little sense even on its own terms.

I'm very interested in where they go with another season of Shogun. I can't see more good stories coming out of the S1 Shogun timeline, especially since my two favorite characters are dead, although I'd be happy to be proven wrong. I'd love to see more stories set in Japan with most of the original cast returning to play different characters.

It\u2019s a busy week in TV, and thus at the newsletter, so everything\u2019s going to be a bit Quibi\u2019er than usual, if you catch my drift, with a super-sized edition of Odds and/or Ends to allow me to cover as much as possible in between Rolling Stone responsibilities. As James Poniewozik used to say when he wrote for Time, let\u2019s go straight to the hail of bullets!

Let\u2019s start with my column about the TV show I\u2019ve enjoyed most in recent weeks: John Mulaney\u2019s Netflix talk show stunt Everybody\u2019s in L.A. I wrote about how what was meant to once again encourage viewers to stream Netflix content live instead for the most part turned out to be evergreen in the same way that Somebody Feed Phil! is. (More on Phil in a bit.) I need more of Richard Kind, talk show sidekick in my life, even if it\u2019s just a few times a year. Please.

My second review was much less enthusiastic: Apple\u2019s Huey Newton miniseries The Big Cigar opts to tell the story of the Black Panther Party founder through the very Argo-esque story \u2014 it\u2019s even based on an article by the same reporter whose work inspired Argo \u2014 of a pair of Hollywood producers trying to smuggle Huey out of the country by pretending to be making a Blaxploitation film. Despite the usually reliable work from Andre Holland as Newton, there\u2019s not a lot there, and the show really flinches when it comes to some of the real details of the story.

Once upon a time, I would have spent this past week shuttling in and out of New York City, rushing from one fancy venue after another for Upfront Week \u2014 aka the annual stretch where every TV network announces its upcoming shows and schedules for advertisers and the press. Of course, once upon a time, Upfront Week was defined entirely by the broadcast networks, at a time when broadcast TV still provided the great majority of original TV content. (And, before I began doing this job, the networks basically provided all of it.)

But the TV business, you might have heard, has gone through some pretty radical changes over the last 15 years or so. Schedules don\u2019t really matter. The broadcasters are just trying to hang onto the audiences they have, and in some cases are barely even making scripted shows anymore. Somehow, ABC \u2014 which only a few years ago had multiple successful sitcom blocs, with shows like black-ish, Speechless, Fresh Off the Boat, The Goldbergs, and Modern Family \u2014 will literally have one scripted show on its fall schedule, Abbott Elementary. Things aren\u2019t quite that severe with the rest of the old guard, but it\u2019s not great. And at this point, the upfront presentations are more about conglomerates promoting multiple platforms at once, so the Disney upfront was as much or more about Disney+, Hulu, etc as it was about the good old-fashioned ABC television network. (Pictured above, for instance, is Kerry Washington standing in front of a giant streaming interface.) So I\u2019ve barely paid attention at all, other than friends who are attending or streaming texting me about various celebrities who appeared on stage. (I got several all-caps \u201CJON HAMM!\u201D messages during the Fox upfront, from friends who know of my great affection for the man behind Jon Hamm\u2019s John Ham.)

I don\u2019t miss sitting through those dog-and-pony shows. But I do miss the days when the broadcast networks mattered, and when they could be relied on to have a bunch of interesting shows every year that made 22 or more episodes. (Sometimes, they even made 27, which is part of a book I recently published, which you may or may not have heard about.)

Upfront Week brings with it lots of announcements. One of particular interest here: Amazon has ordered another season of Mr. & Mrs. Smith, but it will reportedly not feature Donald Glover and Maya Erskine. As we discussed back in February, the season ended on what could be a final note for their versions of John and Jane Smith, an d the premise of the series allows for an anthological approach where we get new Smiths each time out. But Glover and Erskine were so good together, it\u2019s at least a bit disappointing if they\u2019re done playing those roles.

FX put out an oddly-worded announcement late yesterday: \u201CFX, Hulu and the Estate of James Clavell are working to extend the critically acclaimed global hit drama Sh\u014Dgun, moving forward to develop the saga with two additional seasons of the drama series.\u201D Given that the press release also says that it\u2019s \u201CFX\u2019s most-watched show ever based on global hours streamed,\u201D this was inevitable, even though these 10 episodes told the complete story of Clavell\u2019s novel \u2014 spectacularly, but completely. So now we see if Rachel Kondo and company can justify continuing this story \u2014 as opposed to doing some kind of \u201CSh\u014Dgun Presents\u201D banner that would allow them to do Tai-Pan and some of Clavell\u2019s other Japanese novels \u2014 or if this will, like Big Little Lies Season Two, et al, a misguided attempt to not let a beloved thing end at the right time. (Or, for that matter, whether the whole thing is a scam designed to get Sh\u014Dgun moved into the drama categories at this year\u2019s Emmys, where it would have a much cleaner path to a lot of trophies.)

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